How great is it watching Genie Francis -- legendary Laura to Anthony Geary’s illustrious Luke -- return to ABC’s “General Hospital” as an actual actress, not some unnaturally youthful soapland glamourpuss?
Francis is now 44 and mostly a full-time mom in Maine. (She’s married to actor/director Jonathan Frakes.) Her character has been largely off-screen in a catatonic state since 2002, when Francis left the show after Laura went bonkers and killed her stepfather on the way to remarrying love-of-her-life Luke.
Her return is apparently a temporary one -- a month’s stint celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 1981 Luke and Laura wedding frenzy that landed the actors a Newsweek cover, among other pop-culture hoopla the likes of which daytime soaps haven’t seen since. In the intervening years, the genre has become more glam and hyper-dramatic, less romantic and, many would argue, much less fun. The look of newer actors being cast tends toward the Photoshopped sleek of nip/tucked models whose faces might break if they actually emoted.
Yet here’s Francis, back a week now, looking as dazed, haggard and normally aged as one might after four years catatonic in the looney bin. No glamour makeup, no hyper-styled hair, no couture costumes.
Not that she can’t still look fab. In Friday’s episode, when Luke declared to Laura his undying love, Francis came to a kind of vibrant life that stripped away the years and the tragedies, taking on a natural beauty radiating from within.
Nah. That kind of thing can’t last.
But soaps would be tons more interesting if it could.
(Photo credit: ABC/Ron Tom)