Black-and-White and Red-Hot
Did any couple define Love in the Afternoon better than the one that made General Hospital a phenomenon? Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) and Laura Baldwin (Genie Francis) — as if you didn’t know!
Love in the Afternoon: Photos From the Golden Age of ABC’s Soaps
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Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) -
America’s Next Top Model
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In 1983, All My Children covergirl Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) took her pocketful of poses to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum to see if she could upstage the exhibits. She did, by the way.
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Waterfalling for You
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Back in 1987, when soaps could still afford to go on location, One Life to Live went all the way to Argentina with Cord Roberts (John Loprieno) and Kate Sanders (future Melrose Place psycho and Desperate Housewife Marcia Cross).
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The Best of BFFs
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images The clique that everyone wanted to be a part of in 1982 was the small, tight-knit All My Children one that included Greg Nelson (Laurence Lau), Jenny Gardner (Kim Delaney, now recurring on General Hospital as Jackie) and Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams).
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Mystery and Mrs.
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Maybe if they’d just stopped dropping clues… Hmm. As it was, intrigue seemed to follow around The Edge of Night’s Schuyler Whitney (Larkin Malloy) and Raven Alexander (Sharon Gabet) like it was their shadows.
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The Power of Love
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (2) All My Children let “Tad the Cad” Martin (Michael E. Knight, now General Hospital lawyer Martin) sleep his way up one side of Pine Valley and down the other till he found true love with Dixie Cooney (Cady McClain). Side note: We were there for the shenanigans!
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We Are Family
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Ryan’s Hope let the Coleridges remember that they were rich in 1983 for a new opening-credits sequence featuring a dolled-up Jillian (Nancy Addison Altman), Roger (Ron Hale) and Faith (Karen Morris-Gowdy).
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London Calling
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images It wasn’t just Luke and Robert Scorpio who fell for Holly Sutton when Emma Samms joined General Hospital in 1982. Viewers adored her so much, they accepted her as a kinda replacement for Laura.
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J.R., Is That You?
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images, Diana Whitley/Getty Images No, but in the early ’80s, as Dallas caught fire, One Life to Live made sure that cowboy hats abounded. Luckily, the powers that be figured that Glamazon Dorian Lord (Robin Strasser) wouldn’t share the same taste in headgear as Asa Buchanan (Phil Carey) and son Bo (Robert S. Woods).
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No Absence of Mallet
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Style for miles was on display at the 1982 shindig that All My Children’s Montgomery Burns, Palmer Cortlandt (James Mitchell), threw for daughter Nina (Taylor Miller) and husband Cliff Warner (Young & Restless’ Jack, Peter Bergman). As for Phoebe Wallingford (Ruth Warrick)… well, she was Lady Whistledowning the whole affair!
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Skin Is In… Contact
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images So kickass was the chemistry between Loving’s Mike Donovan (James Kiberd) and Shana Sloane (Susan Keith) in 1984 that their portrayers would go on to marry two years later. And stay married!
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The Adventure of a Lifetime
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) General Hospital struck gold with the pairing of Jack Wagner and Kristina Malandro as Frisco Jones and Felicia Cummings. The on-screen sweethearts married in 1993 (and divorced in 2006).
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Too Hot to Handle
Image Credit: Diana Whitley/Getty Images All it took was a glance, and you knew that anywhere that One Life to Live’s Tina Clayton (Andrea Evans) went, trouble was going to show up like an uninvited guest at a pot-luck. Without a casserole, even!
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Like Mother, Like Daughter
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Ryan’s Hope enthralled viewers in 1981 with the love triangle centered around bigwig Rae Woodard (Louise Shaffer), boy toy Michael Pavel (Michael Corbett) and the boss’ daughter, Kimberly Harris (Kelli Maroney). So of course, the show killed him off and sent Kim packing. That makes… sense?
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Older and Wiser
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images The Edge of Night shrewdly acknowledged the value and appeal of seniors in 1984 by keeping front and center Lois Kibbee’s Geraldine Saxon, who was kinda like the Katherine Chancellor of Monticello.
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The Way They Were
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images General Hospital let shippers of Laura (Genie Francis) and Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner) think that they were endgame. Actually, not just think it, believe it — deeply. The thing was — spoiler alert! — they weren’t.
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Three’s a Crowd
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images When Loving debuted, nothing stood between Jack Forbes (Perry Stephens) and Stacey Donovan (Lauren-Marie Taylor). Except, that is, for Lily Slater (Jennifer Ashe) and her multiple personalities.
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The Spy Who *Liked* Me?
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Oh dear. General Hospital scene stealer Tiffany Hill (Sharon Wyatt) might have thought that Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) was, you know, The One. But for him, she was just, er, one of many.
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Teenage Dream
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) In the grand scheme of things, John Stamos was only on General Hospital for a brief time as trouble magnet Blackie Parrish. Yet we still remember him and his amazing hair. Vividly.
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Everything’s Relative
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images, ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection Never mind that General Hospital revealed that Jimmy Lee Holt (Steve Bond) and Celia Quartermaine (Sherilyn Wolter) were kinda-sorta family. He was the man that she really wanted, not Dr. Grant Putnam (Brian Patrick Clarke)… who turned out to be a Russian spy, anyway!
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‘Know What Makes Ya Prettier? Cash!’
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images All My Children beauty peddler Opal Gardner (Dorothy Lyman) turned no one away from her salon, the Glamorama. That is, unless they were broke or she hated ’em. Hey, rules are rules.
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Over There
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Not sure what so entranced One Life to Live’s Viki Riley (Erika Slezak) and Clint Buchanan (Clint Ritchie) in this 1981 photo. But you can rest assured that they soon returned their gaze to one another.
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Deja View
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images From The Edge of Night to the break of day, the Karrs — Nancy (Ann Flood) and Mike (Forrest Compton) — watched over Monticello. Sometimes, as in this shot, literally over.
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The Look of Love
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Once General Hospital paired Felicia Cummings (Kristina Malandro Wagner) and Frisco Jones (Jack Wagner), the audience started eyeballing their TVs as intently as they did each other.
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‘Naughty? Who… Us?’
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In the early days of Loving, Curtis Alden (Christopher Marcantel) and Lorna Forbes (Susan Walters, now Diane on The Young and the Restless) looked like they’d been up to no good even when they hadn’t been.
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Working-Class Doc
Image Credit: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection M.D. meant “mad dashing” once General Hospital started Noah Drake (Rick Springfield) making the rounds. Occasionally, he even took out an appendix as well as every single lady in Port Charles.
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Think of Laura
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Don’t mind if we do. In fact, it’s impossible to think of General Hospital at all without conjuring up images of the heroine that Genie Francis has played since 1977.
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Jesse’s Girl
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In the early 1980s, All My Children struck a match that really caught fire between straight-laced Angie Baxter (Debbi Morgan) and streetwise Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams).
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An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Fans of General Hospital mobster Sonny Corinthos owe a debt of gratitude to his forerunner, Roscoe Born’s Joe Novak, the conflicted don of Ryan’s Hope. He wrote the book on brooding mafiosos.
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Young and Restless, Indeed
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Ordinarily, The Edge of Night had Preacher Emerson (Charles Flohe Grant) looking more like he was embracing than manhandling Jody Travis (Lori Loughlin, decades away from When Calls the Heart and the college bribery scheme for which she’s now infamous).
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Consider Us Floored
Image Credit: Diana Whitley/Getty Images General Hospital was such an outta-the-park hit in the ’80s that at one point, a rival soap offered Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie) a quarter of a million dollars just to not re-sign her contract. (Read all about it here.)
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Hat’s All, Folks
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) Only a true fashionista like incorrigible Loving vixen Ava Rescott (Roya Megnot) could pull off the kind of outre headgear that she put on in 1986.
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Two for the Show
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images We want to say that this 1980 still from One Life to Live embodies the delight that Dorian Lord (Robin Strasser) felt at never having had to admit in court that she was a hooker like Karen Wolek (showbiz legend in the making Judith Light). But that probably isn’t right.
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Monkeying Around
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Everybody was really moved by the 1980 Ryan’s Hope storyline in which lonely Delia Coleridge (Randall Edwards) was kidnapped by the gorilla that she’d befriended. And by “everybody,” we mean “everybody who’s typing this caption.” (Read our defense of the plot here.)
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Rx for Fireworks
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images It wasn’t his bedside manner that made philandering General Hospital doctor Alan Quartermaine (Stuart Damon) such a hot commodity, it was his antics in bed.
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One in a Million
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images All My Children let Kent Bogard (Lee Godart) think that he might actually have a future with Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). Until, that is, she shot him for sleeping with her half sister who turned out to be an imposter!
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Fresh Heir
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In 1980, the Quartermaines of General Hospital — Lila (Anna Lee) and Edward (David Lewis) — welcomed into their midst grandson A.J. (Eric Kroh). Little did they suspect what a scheming screw-up he’d turn out to be!
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‘Do You Want… Something?’
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Alone time could be hard to come by for the Whitneys of The Edge of Night. Such a devoted manservant was Gunther Wagner (David Froman) that he hated to be away from Sky (Larkin Malloy) and Raven (Sharon Gabet).
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Opposites Attract
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Technically, the Love in the Afternoon era was over by the time All My Children paired Nico Kelly (Maurice Benard, on his way to General Hospital as Sonny) and Julie Chandler (Lauren Holly) in 1988. But c’mon — they would’ve totally fit in, right?
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Fringe Element
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images We may never have seen a more 1980s-riffic photo than this one of General Hospital wonder women Tiffany Hill (Sharon Wyatt), Celia Quartermaine (Sherilyn Wolter), Heather Webber (Robin Mattson), Holly Sutton (Emma Samms), Bobbie Spencer (Jacklyn Zeman) and Claudia Phillips (Bianca Ferguson).
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Family Affair
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In 1982, Ryan’s Hope reunited Rae Woodard (Louise Shaffer) with long-lost babydaddy Hollis Kirkland (Peter Haskell) — and introduced him to troublemaking Kimberly Harris (Kelli Maroney), the daughter he’d never known that they had!
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Passion’s Plaything
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Where was Tinder when she needed it? General Hospital doc Monica Quartermaine (Leslie Charleson) was always looking for love in all the wrong places.
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True Love Forever?
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images “Forever” turned out to be not nearly as long as we wanted for All My Children sweethearts Greg Nelson (Laurence Lau) and ill-fated Jenny Gardner (Kim Delaney).
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A *Very* Convenient Marriage
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images General Hospital only had Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) tie the knot with Holly Sutton (Emma Samms) to keep “late” buddy Luke Spencer’s pregnant girlfriend from being deported. You can guess how that turned out!
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‘Let’s Table That Discussion’
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Arguably the most star-crossed lovers in Ryan’s Hope history, Frank Ryan (Daniel Hugh-Kelly) and Jillian Coleridge (Nancy Addison Altman) could only hope in 1979 that they’d one day be as happily hitched as the his parents, Johnny (Bernard Barrow) and Maeve (Helen Gallagher).
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Hard to Hold
Image Credit: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2) General Hospital nurse Bobbie Spencer (Jacklyn Zeman) could cry, “I’ve done everything for you!” as much as she liked. But she could never convince Noah Drake (Rick Springfield) to be her permanent Dr. Feel-Good.
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Best Stressed
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images As dearly as All My Children’s Brooke English (Julia Barr) loved Adam Chandler (David Canary), Lord, did that man try her patience. He had a lot of enemies, but he was always his worst one!
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Two-Faced
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images As you can see in these real-vs.-reel-life snaps from 1979, Jane Elliot wasn’t nearly as tightly wound off screen as she was when playing tart-tongued Tracy Quartermaine on General Hospital.
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‘Can Ya Believe It?’
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images The smart answer would have been no. But Ryan’s Hope conniver Delia Ryan (Ilene Kristen) had Roger Coleridge (Ron Hale) so enthralled that he probably bought whatever line of bull she was selling in 1977.
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A Day at the Beach…
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) … was something that the relationship between All My Children’s Cliff Warner (Peter Bergman) and Nina Cortlandt (Taylor Miller) never was. Except in these particular photos.
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*Just* One Life to Live?
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images After One Life to Live killed off Joe Riley (Lee Patterson), widow Viki (Erika Slezak) would’ve loved for him to have had a spare. And in a way, he did: Years after his death, his portrayer returned as his twin brother, Tom Dennison.
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Anna-lyze This
Image Credit: Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images By 1986, General Hospital had been turned completely upside-down by the arrival of Robert Scorpio’s “late” wife, Anna Devane (Finola Hughes). And the actress who played her? As you can see, utterly unfussed.
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Ready for Takeoff
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Ryan’s Hope married off probably its last supercouple in 1985 when it thrust Rick Hyde (future Melrose Place and Dynasty star Grant Show) and Ryan Fenelli (Baywatch babe-to-be Yasmine Bleeth) into an “altared state.”
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Whatever You Do, Don’t Turn Around
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Why? Because although All My Children cad Tad Martin (Michael E. Knight) developed real feelings for bad girl Liza Colby (Marcy Walker), they weren’t real enough to keep him from shagging her mother!
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Like a Virgin
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images General Hospital doc Jeff Webber (future MacGyver Richard Dean Anderson) was sure that Anne Logan (Susan Pratt) would be good for what ailed him. But the competition for the virtuous nurse was stiff — and included his pal Joe Kelly (Douglas Sheehan, en route to Knots Landing).
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Fiddle Dee Dee
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images In 1984, Ryan’s Hope tried to attract some of that huge General Hospital audience by recasting Delia Coleridge with Robin Mattson, who was (and again would be) Port Charles’ notorious Heather Webber.
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Dark Shadows
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images No, actually, this is All My Children circa 1981, an especially gothic period during which Mrs. Danvers Myra Murdock (Elizabeth Lawrence) had to play referee for daughter Daisy (Gillian Spencer) and her volatile ex, Palmer Cortlandt (James Mitchell), a hothead who was prone to releasing the hounds.
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No Keeping Up With *This* Jones
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) “All I Need” was the Jack Wagner hit that General Hospital used for Frisco Jones and Tania Roskov’s love theme. It would’ve worked fine, too, as the ballad that smitten fans most wanted to sing to the actor.
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Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Loving viewers didn’t exactly fall for the soap’s inaugural coupling of Doug Donovan (Bryan Cranston) and Merrill Vochek (Patricia Kalember). But their portrayers went on to bright careers: She starred on NBC’s Sisters, and he went on to become a household name thanks to Breaking Bad.
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#awkward
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images General Hospital jacked up the tension in 1982 by sitting at the same table at Kelly’s Diner Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary), his former squeeze Jackie Templeton (budding movie star Demi Moore), his current squeeze Holly Sutton (Emma Samms) and her future squeeze Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers)… who at the time was involved with Jackie!
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The Luck of the Irish…
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) … wasn’t enough to keep Ryan’s Hope supercouple Mary Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager captain Kate Mulgrew) together with sparring partner Jack Fenelli (Michael Levin). When her portrayer took her leave to see if the grass was really greener in Hollywood — it was — the show tried in vain to recast her. A lot.
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Role Model… or Model Role?
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images (3) Either way, no one could say that All My Children’s Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) — aka the face of Sensuelle Cosmetics — didn’t work hard for the money.
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Nothing to See Here
Image Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images Just a totally casual and not at all fraught photo of Loving’s Ava Rescott (Lisa Peluso), object of her desire Clay Alden (James Horan) and his occasional wife, Gwyneth (Christine Tudor). OK, maybe a smidgen fraught. But mostly glamtastic.
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Going With the Fro
Image Credit: Diana Whitley/Getty Images No collection of photos dedicated to ABC’s Love in the Afternoon era would be complete without a shot of General Hospital anti-hero Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) and his infamous hairdo.
