General Hospital’s Victor Cassadine Is Alive and Well… and Being Played By Charles Shaughnessy?

Add another name to the list of General Hospital characters who have risen from premature graves of late: Charles Shaughnessy — perhaps best known for playing Mr. Sheffield on The Nanny — has stepped into the role of the not-so-late Victor Cassadine, formerly played by Thaao Penghlis.

Proving that the more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems that Victor is still very much in love with Obrecht… despite the fact that back in 2014, she shot and “killed” him. You’ll recall that for a time, Victor believed himself to be the father of Obrecht’s beloved son Nathan (Ryan Paevey). But after a DNA test proved that not to be the case, she shot and killed her erstwhile lover. Why? In order to prevent the truth about Nathan’s dad from coming out. As she told herself (and, by extension, the audience), Nathan’s actual father was someone far, far worse than a Cassadine!

Perhaps now that Victor’s back — and still as in love with Obrecht as ever — perhaps we might finally revisit the unsolved mystery surrounding Nathan’s paternity? Given that Obrecht has recently gotten hot-and-heavy with Scotty, might a new triangle be in the making, or has everyone’s favorite German-speaking former doctor well and truly moved on from the Cassadine?

More: Could Ryan Paevey’s Nathan be next to return? 

Meanwhile, no word on exactly why the show decided to recast the part of Victor, although Penghlis is currently doing double-duty, appearing on both Days of Our Lives and its spinoff series, Beyond Salem, which begins streaming Monday, September 6th on Peacock. 

Hard as it is to believe, the character of Victor was first introduced way back in 1981 as part of the Ice Princess storyline which saw Luke and Laura attempting to prevent the Cassadine clan from freezing the world (starting, of course, with Port Charles). At the time, Victor’s true love was movie starlet Tiffany Hill, but she eventually turned on him and helped the good guys put the Cassadines behind bars. He would, of course, return repeatedly to bedevil his enemies.

No word on how long Victor will stick around this time. Meanwhile, since we’re discussing character’s coming back to General Hospital, why not check out this photo gallery in which we list some of the ones we’d most love to see back.