ABC's GENERAL HOSPITAL to celebrate 50 years of soap opera drama
GENERAL HOSPITAL changed the mold for soap operas," said Karen Herman, director of the Archive of American Television, part of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation. The archive has collected oral histories of nearly a dozen actors from the show, including Francis and Geary.
"It became one of the first soaps to go on location for shoots, they introduced younger characters and they tackled sensitive issues like cancer, AIDS and rape," Herman said.
Unlike older soaps, which were produced in New York, "General Hospital" has long been a West Coast production. The hulking hospital exterior in the opening credits is familiar to Los Angeles residents because it is an image of the landmark USC Medical Center, east of downtown L.A.
Over the years, the show helped give rise to several stars, including Demi Moore, Ricky Martin, Rick Springfield and John Stamos. Mark Hamill appeared on the show, as did Elizabeth Taylor in the program's heyday of 1981.
Exercise guru Richard Simmons still pops up on the show, lending a comedic splash of 1980s charm, said Roger Newcomb, founder of the
We Love Soaps website.
"It's always been the No. 1 soap in terms of pop culture," Newcomb said.
Former soap star Dylan Bruce takes on sci-fi
"Working on a soap opera is such good training for the novice actor. No rehearsal, 120 pages of dialogue per week, and one take to get the scene right, no room for error," says Bruce, who had a blast playing Dr. Chris Hughes on AS THE WORLD TURNS. "I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't, memorizing scripts became second nature."