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After an Emotional Day, Chad Duell’s General Hospital Family Reaches Out to Show Their Support
Wednesday, April 27th, 2022
We can all use a hug sometimes.
The Corinthos family has been through the ringer lately over on General Hospital. Secrets, lies, betrayals, sons turning on their fathers, relationships shattered — all of that takes a toll! It’s not just the characters, though, who feel these things, but also the actors who have to deliver emotionally heavy performances day in and day out.
More: Is Harmony really written into a corner?
Chad Duell and Maurice Benard have been sharing especially fraught scenes as Michael and Sonny butt heads over their family’s implosion. When a fan posted a clip of Michael being “ruthless today” as he told Sonny off about why Carly filed for divorce, Benard chimed in with a mix of tongue-in-cheek annoyance and genuine pride.
“Chad’s taking no prisoners,” he responded. “As a character who plays my son, I want to tell him to go to hell, but as an actor, I want to hug him.”
Chad‘s taking-no prisoners as a character who plays my son I want to tell him to go to hell but as an actor I want to hug him
— Maurice Benard (@MauriceBenard) April 26, 2022
You can usually count on some hilarious back-and-forth banter between the two actors as they take turns teasing each other, but instead, Duell responded with a heart and informed his TV dad that “I’ll take a hug.”
It didn’t take long after that for the actor’s on-screen mom to chime in as Laura Wright (Carly) responded that “I’ll hug you.”
I’ll hug you
— Laura Wright (@lldubs) April 26, 2022
And when Duell’s “sister” Eden McCoy (Josslyn) added her own heart and declared that she’d give him a hug too, fan ShyChipotle put it best as we all felt the love coming from “the family!”
THE FAMILY 💜🥹
— Chipotle✨ (DBD STRUMMER) (@ShyChipotle) April 26, 2022
The fans, of course, all offered their own versions of virtual hugs (though some are still ticked that Michael’s turned on his dad so vehemently), but as fan Andy Johnson put it, “It says a lot about the quality of the acting to make us (me) feel bad for the family relationships. You guys are great!”
It says a lot about the quality of the acting to make us (me) feel bad for the family relationships. You guys are great!
— andy johnson (@rockmarne) April 26, 2022
More: The part of Sonny/Nina Maurice Benard can’t justify
We agree wholeheartedly. All the actors involved in this story has been knocking it out of the park and keeping us in our feels with nearly every scene!
Take a look at all of Michael and Sonny’s family ties in our photo album covering who’s who in the Corinthos clan.
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Image: Sean Smith/JPI
1/22
<p>You might think that at the center of a soap called <em>General Hospital</em> you would find, you know, a hospital. But in fact, most of the drama in Port Charles revolves around its Teflon don, the dimpled mafioso whose life of crime has afforded him untold riches and power… <em>and</em> saddled him with a terrible tendency to look over his shoulder. Like here, for instance. He’s actually talking to someone directly in front of him, and yet his gaze is drawn… Well, you can see where it’s drawn, can’t you?</p>
Image: ABC, Howard Wise/JPI, Sean Smith/JPI
2/22
<p>Though Monica and the late Alan Quartermaine’s son isn’t a blood relative of Sonny’s, make no mistake, Stone Cold was family. He was as devoted to his brooding BFF and his relatives as he was addicted to size XS black T-shirts — and obviously, he liked those a <em>lot</em>. Heck Jason even let go of ex-wife Sam McCall and their child rather than give up acting as a human shield for the big kahuna and his kids.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
3/22
<p>Ah, if Sonny’s dimples could talk, they’d say that many and varied are the women who have, ahem, mobbed him. But his true soulmate — his partner in crime, if you will — is Jason’s ex-lover, a moll so tough and cunning, she could scare off would-be assailants one-handed, as illustrated, and at the same time crank-call the Port Charles PD. “Who is this? Umm… My name’s Liz, officer. Liz Webber.”</p>
Image: ABC
4/22
<p>Know why Carly is laughing in this photo? Because thus far, Sonny’s new squeeze hasn’t gotten his ring on her finger, making her at best <em>extended</em> family. Why is Nina still smiling? She seems to be the last to realize that.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
5/22
<p>Did we mention that Sonny can impregnate a woman from 20 paces? Because he not only can, he has. Case in point: Back in his Bensonhurst days, he left in a delicate condition girlfriend Connie Falconeri’s cousin, Olivia. (Full disclosure: We have no idea how many paces away she was at the time.) Decades later, he welcomed to the fold his surprise firstborn by shooting the undercover cop in cold blood. Lucky for him, Dante took as a sufficient apology, “Sorry, man, I didn’t know we were related.”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
6/22
<p>Even before he was hitched to Carly, Sonny wasn’t a big fan of Jason’s half brother, A.J., who knocked up the future Mrs. C, only to be misled about his son’s paternity, drugged and left in an alley to wake up thinking that he’d tumbled off the wagon. So Port Charles’ Al Capone thought nothing of shoving Richie Rich out of the life of his and Carly’s son and raising him as his own. (At least he eventually felt a <em>little</em> bad about pumping Michael’s biological father full of lead.)</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
7/22
<p>We may never know whether the night that Sonny spent with attorney Alexis Davis was filed under “billable hours” (or who billed whom!). But what we <em>do</em> know is that the, erm, legal consultation resulted in the birth of the smooth criminal’s first biological child, a daughter who over the years has gone from teen terror to would-be reality-TV star to out-and-proud lesbian who is all too rarely spotted on screen. In fact, you’ll probably see more of her in the photo above than you will on the show this year.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
8/22
<p>Sonny’s first child with Carly inherited a whole lot from Dad — maybe even too much. In addition to getting Pop’s good looks and charm, Morgan grew into his father’s dangerous edge, bipolar-disorder diagnosis and refusal to smile when anyone said, “Cheese!” Also like Sonny, Morgan had an impossible time resisting the siren song of Port Charles’ most formidable femme fatale, Ava Jerome, who’d ultimately add to the family tree a branch for…</p>
Image: ABC
9/22
<p>We could show you the daughter that Sonny and Ava conceived while having ill-advised grief sex in a mausoleum here. Or we could show you something even rarer: the youngster’s parents looking like they don’t want to murder one another and like they’ve all but forgotten that uncomfortable stretch when they didn’t know whether she was expecting Sonny’s child or his grandchild, and he bided his time by threatening to fit Connie’s killer with cement shoes. On second thought, we should’ve gone with a photo of Avery.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
10/22
<p>Given the difficulties that Carly had had with previous pregnancies, Sonny wasn’t exactly popping the cork when she revealed that their New Year’s Eve 2019 celebration had resulted in her being once again with child. But as soon as he met the tyke, who endured her first kidnapping in utero — thanks a <em>lot</em>, Ryan Chamberlain! — he of course fell head over heels in love so fast, he couldn’t be sure that he didn’t have vertigo. Oh, and another thing: He’s a much more doting dad than this picture makes him look like. He totally knows she’s there. (Probably just cross about that “Cheese!” joke and proving that he will sometimes smile on cue.)</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
11/22
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Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
12/22
<p>“Close” would not have been the word that you’d have used to describe the relationship between Sonny and the father who abandoned him and his mother — at least not until the older man was stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Then, both of them knowing that time was running out, they took great pains to heal old wounds before it was too late. And hey, if nothing else, Mike introduced to Sonny’s life…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
13/22
<p>Oh boy. Sonny took to having a kid sister like a fish to concrete. He was so overprotective at first, it drove the independent young woman crazy. And after she’d fallen into and out of relationships with everyone from A.J. to Jason, from Jax to Nikolas Cassadine, it turned out that the great and powerful “coffee importer” couldn’t safeguard her at all, anyway: She succumbed not to a bad romance but to encephalitis.</p>
Image: ABC
14/22
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Image: Howard Wise/JPI
15/22
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Image: Howard Wise/JPI
16/22
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Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
17/22
<p>The moppet with Lulu Spencer above is her son with Dante. Now, it might seem strange for us to come right out and say that so plainly; you know we like to have our fun. But in this case, simple seemed better, because honestly, the kid’s history is <em>hella</em> complicated: At various times, Sonny’s grandson was believed to be the offspring of Patrick Drake, Britt Westbourne, Brad Cooper… See what we mean? His birth certificate had to be written in pencil in order to facilitate frequent changes.</p>
Image: ABC
18/22
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Image: ABC
19/22
<p>Initially, Michael’s marriage to buddy Harrison Chase’s girlfriend was one of convenience. But a funny thing happened after the couple got pretend-hitched: They fell so deeply in love that they retied the knot once more, with feeling.</p>
Image: ABC screenshot (2)
20/22
<p>To ensure her and Michael’s baby a safe “debut,” Willow made the dangerous decision to put off treatment for leukemia. And on one hand, it worked: Amelia is as healthy as can be. On the other, Willow darn near left the tot a motherless child.</p>
Image: ABC
21/22
<p>Sometimes it pays to have a family that’s so large that you always have a relative in reserve to call into action when the need arises. For example, Mike’s cousin and her “late”-turned-late son came in awfully handy to Sonny when he was looking for an American citizen to pass off as the biological father of…</p>
Image: ABC
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