Not exactly. When Kelly Monaco made her General Hospital debut as con artist Sam McCall on October 1, 2003, she’d already spent the previous three years playing vampire magnet Livvie Locke on its ahead-of-its-time spinoff Port Charles. We can’t imagine how long it took for her to get used to the sudden lack of fangs when scripts called for her to “neck” with on-screen love interests!
After short-lived affairs with Jasper Jacks and Sonny Corinthos, Sam found herself expecting. And if you know Carly, you know how awkward that was! To keep his mobster bestie’s family from imploding, henchman Jason Morgan stepped up and claimed that he was the babydaddy. So by the time tragedy struck — little Lila was stillborn — the non-couple was well on its way to true love.
When Alexis Davis’ daughter Kristina needed a life-saving bone-marrow transplant — and Sam’s ill-fated child proved to be a donor match — the two epically clashed. As a result, Sam was horrified to learn that the attorney was actually her biological mother. Then she was further upset when Alexis tried to make up for lost time by moving heaven and earth to break up her and Mob muscle Jason.
While separated from Jason and royally ticked at Alexis for the starring role that she’d played in the split, Sam worked out some of her anger and resentment by having a regrettable one-night stand with stepfather Ric Lansing. Of note: The scandalous tryst wasn’t anywhere near as tame as this photo suggests that it was. She and Sonny’s half brother did a whole lot more than amiably shake hands.
D’oh. Sam couldn’t muster up a poker face around romantic rival Elizabeth Webber after she found out that Jason was the father of her son, Jake. Worse, during a particularly dark stretch, Sam even stood by and did nothing but watch as the little boy was kidnapped. And later, after Jason dumped her, she went so far as to hire thugs to terrorize Liz and Jake. Dial it down a notch! Several notches!
As adept at holding a grudge as Jason was a firearm, Sam sought to get revenge on her ex and Liz by seducing her nemesis’ then-husband, Lucky Spencer. The temptress got more than she bargained for, though, when she and the hot cop developed real feelings for one another… just in time for him to find out that she let Jake be kidnapped and give her the ol’ heave-ho. Curses, foiled again!
What should’ve been an unusually happy period for Sam and Jason fell apart after they got back together again and tied the knot. Mad artist Franco kidnapped them both and led them to believe that he’d raped the bride — meaning that, for a time, they couldn’t be sure who was the father of Danny, the child she would ultimately name after her late brother. (Spoiler alert: It was Jason.)
Following Jason’s “death,” Sam tried to start over with One Life to Live detective John McBain… not to be confused with Silas Clay, the doctor Michael Easton would play next, Hamilton Finn, the doctor he plays now, or Caleb Morley, the vampire he played on Port Charles opposite — that’s right — Monaco herself. But Sam would soon have bigger concerns than her love life. Such as how to…
No sooner had Sam discovered that her father was Derek Wells — in reality, back-from-the-dead mobster Julian Jerome — than she wished he’d stayed dead. When he tried to barter bone marrow needed to save Danny’s life to keep Sonny from sending him swimming with the fishes, Sam decided that she hadn’t really missed anything at all not knowing him while she was growing up.
Sam had gotten so serious with Robin Scorpio’s “widower” Patrick Drake (Jason Thompson, now Billy on The Young and the Restless) that they got engaged. Which, of course, was Jason’s cue to rise from the grave — or so everyone thought. Once again, Sam and Liz played tug-of-war with “Jason,” but in the end, the former emerged victorious. She and Stone Cold even retied the knot.
Though Sam and Jason had started a whole new life together — one that included daughter Scout — they were kinda sorta living someone else’s life. How’s that? It turned out that the Jason with whom Sam had reconnected wasn’t Jason at all but his heretofore-unknown twin brother, Drew (then Billy Miller) — an important fact nobody learned until after original-flavor Jason came back from the dead himself.
By the hardest, Sam and Jason eventually found their way back into one another’s arms — just in time for nefarious cult leader Shiloh to set up shop in Port Charles and wreak the kind of havoc that didn’t end until he’d been shot with a flare gun. Not even Sam’s parole officer could keep her away from her mobster boo, though, not for long. But eventually, Sam herself would stick a fork in “JaSam.”
The 2020 bombing that nearly killed Jason and Danny — and did kill Dev Corbin and Dustin Phillips, and put Lulu Spencer in a coma — made Sam reconsider whether it was worth putting her kids in harm’s way to remain with the man that she loved. It broke Jason’s heart as well as her own, but Sam made the painful decision to let go of the idea that they were the dragon and the phoenix.
Slowly but surely, Sam found herself being drawn to Sonny’s older son, Dante Falconeri. In fact, they were just starting to look like they might have what it takes to make it in the long haul when who should come back from the dead but Drew (now Cameron Mathison)? Did we forget to mention that he’d “died”? You knew that. People are always “dying” in air quotes in Port Charles!
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