Remember Luke & Laura’s Controversial Wedding on ‘General Hospital?’ It Aired Over 40 Years Ago
If you’re a longtime General Hospital fan, you likely remember one of the most-watched weddings in soap opera history. 30 million viewers tuned in to see Luke and Laura wed on November 16 and 17, 1981. After three years, Lucas Lorenzo Spencer (Anthony Geary) and Laura Webber Baldwin (Genie Francis) got married in a two-part episode on the ABC soap opera. The episode drew in lots of viewers in part because of Elizabeth Taylor, a self-proclaimed GH fan, played a guest role as a woman named Helena Cassadine, who cursed the newlyweds because she blamed Luke for the death of her husband.
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In another shocking twist, Laura’s ex-husband Scotty showed up and caught the bouquet. Luke and Scotty then got into a huge fistfight. Despite all of the drama, the couple had a happy ending and they stayed married for twenty years on the show, plus had two children.
However, their relationship was controversial from the start. The show was originally going to portray that Luke raped Laura during her marriage to Scotty. After some backlash, it was rewritten as a seduction.
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Francis later said about the relationship: “You know, as a young kid, at 17, I was told to play rape, and I played it. I didn’t even know what it was. But, at 17, you follow the rules, and you do as you are told, and you aim to please. At 60, I don’t feel the need to defend that anymore. I think that the story was inappropriate, I don’t condone it, and it’s been a burden that I’ve had to carry to try to justify that story, and so I’m not doing that anymore. I think, when a woman says ‘No,’ that she should be listened to, and if you replay that scene, you don’t have Laura just saying ‘No.’ You have her screaming ‘No.'”
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Although the wedding episode was buzzing with viewers, some of whom even sent wedding gifts (Princess Diana, newly married to then Prince Charles at the time, sent the couple champagne), the cast said that the day of filming was actually awful. “It wasn’t a lot of fun,” Geary said. “It really wasn’t.” He added that it was “a very uncomfortable day” due to the heat and stress of filming the episode. “Whenever Genie and I are introduced [at an event] for the rest of our lives, they’ll run that clip of us saying our vows,” he added in 1996. “And every time they do, we’ll groan.”
Tell us, did you watch Luke and Laura’s wedding live in 1981?
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June 2017
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