Return To Health Since Head Writer Bob Guza’s Return, ‘General Hospital’ Once Again Is In The Pink

Never before has a soap opera turned on a dime so publicly. “From now on, every damn thing around here is gonna be different!” proclaimed Luke Spencer as the Dec. 8 episode of “General Hospital” opened with a raucous party at his nightclub. Before the smoke from Luke’s cigar had wafted into the rafters, viewers saw a wild boogie contest, a drive-by shooting, a mobster’s attempted murder, a supermodel’s mental meltdown, and heroic lifesaving attempts - events that sent months of story line in motion.

“Bam! We were off and running,” exulted “GH” head writer Bob Guza, who announced in that script his intent to shake things up after a year’s hiatus. “It felt good to watch.”

The venerable soap opera, which had limped through its 34th year, hitting fifth place in the ratings among the 11 daytime series last November, was suddenly back in business.

In the four months since Guza’s new stories started airing, “GH” - which from 1979 to 1987 was the No. 1-rated daytime drama - has bounced between the No. 2 and No. 3 spots in the ratings, picking up nearly 400,000 viewers along the way.

And Guza hopes “GH” will celebrate its 35th year on top once more.

“I love this show,” the writer enthused, leaning back in a leather chair in his austere office overlooking the ABC-TV lot in Hollywood. “This is like coming home for me. I couldn’t wait to come back.”

Guza left for a year to develop NBC’s new “Sunset Beach” soap for Aaron Spelling.

During his absence, ratings dipped, many viewers wrote to complain about boring stories, and tales Guza had carefully plotted went awry under the manipulations of three other head writers in succession.

“They took characters in directions I wouldn’t have taken them,” Guza said. “But there are other things that I’m eternally grateful for, that I can build on.”

Whatever comes now, the “GH” cast is ready for it. When word of Guza’s return became public, some actors who reportedly had been considering moving on when their contracts were up began to purr with content.

Steve Burton, who plays the pivotal role of young mob chieftain Jason Morgan, signed a new multiyear contract. And Anthony Geary, who has played volatile Luke Spencer for 20 years, is a happy man again.

“Bob Guza is my hero,” Geary said. “I adore the man. He was with us 20 years ago, and he has always had a respect for the (Luke) character that nobody else had.”

On the set Dec. 8, as the writer hovered behind the cameras, Geary asked him how to deliver the crucial line. “He said, ‘Just tell the truth. Every damn thing is going to change around here.’ So when I said that, I was speaking for the writer, and I was speaking for the character, and I was speaking for the fans,” Geary said.

But is Guza the reason for the show’s renewed success?

“The show’s gone up to No. 2 since he’s been back. He had to have something to do with that,” Kimberly McCullough, who’s played Robin Scorpio for 12 of her 19 years, said matter-of-factly. “That doesn’t just miraculously happen.”

It took many near-miracles to get “GH” on the air in its early days.

The oldest soap produced on the West Coast, it debuted April 1, 1963, in black and white, with action centering around General Hospital in the fictional upstate New York waterfront town of Port Charles. Those first stories centered around three characters: dedicated Dr. Steve Hardy, loyal nurse Jessie Brewer and her philandering and much-younger husband, Dr. Phil Brewer.

“No one expected us to last very long,” John Beradino, who played Steve Hardy until his death in 1996, told Seli Groves, author of “The Ultimate Soap Opera Guide.”

“GH” was the first soap to concentrate on making medical maladies seem real; it even hired a real doctor to coach the actors on their performances. And while other soaps centered around chats over the kitchen table, “GH” broke new ground with story lines on rape and infertility, and over the years its characters dealt with the effects of breast cancer, AIDS, alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic abuse and other social issues.

But its popularity waned, and by 1976 it had sunk to No. 10 among the 15 soaps then on the air. The show was given six months to boost its ratings or be canceled.

Enter executive producer Gloria Monty, determined to put a younger face on Port Charles with a handful of teenage actors - among them the young Genie Francis, who was hired to play Laura Webber.

The beautiful daughter of Dr. Leslie Weber was accused of a murder she didn’t commit, married law student Scotty Baldwin (played by Kin Shriner) and went to work in the campus disco, where she met mob hit man Luke Spencer. Luke, lusting after the teenager and believing he would be murdered the next day, raped Laura.

Under the unwritten soap opera law that decrees that evil-doers must be punished, Luke should have ended up in jail or been murdered.

But viewers had fallen in love with the couple, so the writers quickly rewrote history, characterizing the sexual attack as a seduction. Laura fell in love with her rapist, and Luke and Laura became soapdom’s first “supercouple.”

As “GH” expanded from a half-hour to an hour in 1978, college students scheduled their classes around the show. Luke and Laura were pictured on the cover of Newsweek magazine, and their November 1981 wedding, which drew more than 30 million viewers, still ranks as daytime’s most-watched episode.

Neither Francis nor Geary, who were busy in the studio taping four or five shows a day during Luke and Laura’s heyday, had any idea their characters had made such an impression on America’s consciousness.

“I think it was the cover of Newsweek when we went, ‘Wow, what’s going on here?”’ Geary said. “We never expected Luke and Laura to be that big.”

Once wed, the couple rode off into the sunset but returned in 1993. Since then, Francis has left to give birth to two children and is currently on extended maternity leave. Ostensibly, Laura is hiding from the Cassadines - her two-decadesago kidnappers - but viewers are growing impatient for her return.

In the 12 years daytime shows have competed for their own Emmys, the series and its cast members have won 26 statuettes, including Best Daytime Drama in 1981, ‘84, ‘95, ‘96 and ‘97. It’s nominated for more than a dozen Emmys this year; awards will be handed out May 15.

It’s Guza’s longtime link with the show - he started as a scriptwriter in 1982 - that has everyone expecting that the awards will continue to roll in.

Soap audiences have dwindled in the past 20 years, so can “GH” ever be No. 1 again? Can it overcome the CBS-TV powerhouse “The Young and the Restless,” the top-rated soap for more than nine years?

“I think we’ll do it,” Guza said confidently. “But to do it, everybody who ever watched ‘General Hospital’ will have to come back. And that’s what we’re aiming for.”

MEMO: Special episode “The General Hospital 35th Anniversary Show” will air at 10 p.m. Thursday on ABC (KXLY-Channel 4 from Spokane).