tristan rogers luke laura wedding gh
Credit: Todd Wawrychuk/ABC; Everett Collection

The iconic event that almost didn’t happen.

Recently we shared the reasons why General Hospital’s Robert and Laura never became a couple and Tristan Rogers also revealed, during an interview with Maurice Benard (Sonny) on State of Mind, that Luke and Laura’s iconic daytime wedding almost didn’t happen either.

“There wasn’t going to be a wedding,” Rogers stated then explained why and how it all came to happen — thanks to the late Elizabeth Taylor. She was a big General Hospital fan — and a huge star — so when she wanted to make an appearance on the ABC soap, the powers that be made it happen in November of 1981.

Back when the show had big summer storylines, the wedding was planned for the summer of 1982. In order to make Taylor’s guest spot work, Rogers shared, “They had to scramble to bring eight months of storyline forward. There really wouldn’t have been a wedding at all if Elizabeth Taylor hadn’t called up and said, ‘I’m not going to appear on the show unless there’s a wedding.’”

More: Soap fave teases drama-filled return

So, the wedding took place in November 1981 — instead of the summer of 1982 — with Taylor appearing as Helena Cassadine and after the big event, Genie Francis quit the soap in order to do a primetime series and Anthony Geary “started making noises about doing other projects” outside of General Hospital. “Elizabeth Taylor changed all that,” Rogers stated. “She brought it all forward so that there was a wedding… After the wedding [Genie] left… Tony didn’t leave until later.”

Talk about a close call!

Reflecting back on having a one-on-one scene with Taylor, who Rogers actually dated for a bit thereafter, he recalled her approaching him to run lines. She’d heard he was a notorious ad-libber and asked Rogers to change up their dialogue — and they rewrote their script!

Here’s a look at their Port Charles scene together:

Learn more about the wedding that almost wasn’t, as well as Rogers’ relationship with Taylor — and how they reconnected over the years — in the video segment below.

And now is the perfect time to open a photo gallery of Luke and Laura’s wedding.

Video: The House of Cassadine; State of Mind/YouTube