Anthony Geary, Luke Spencer on ‘General Hospital,’ Dies at 78

Anthony Geary, the thoughtful General Hospital actor who as the complex Luke Spencer raped and romanced Genie Francis’ Laura Webber Baldwin on the way to an unprecedented eight Daytime Emmy Awards and soap opera superstardom, has died. He was 78.

Geary lived in the Netherlands and died Sunday of complications from a scheduled operation three days earlier, the website TV Insider reported. “It was a shock for me and our families and our friends,” his husband, Claudio Gama, said. “For more than 30 years, Tony has been my friend, my companion, my husband.”

A native of Utah, Geary came to Los Angeles with the help of actor Jack Albertson, guest-starred on the fifth episode of All in the Family and was a regular on the daytime dramas Bright Promise and The Young and the Restless before G.H. legend Gloria Monty approached him about coming to Port Charles, New York, in 1978.

“In my first meeting,…