Come join us as we wander down the path of days gone by... Scroll to the bottom for the latest additions to this section! This article appeared in Afternoon TV in November 1981.     Tony Geary: The Man Who Made Luke A Legend by Marilyn Henry Over the last two years, watching Tony Geary as Luke Spencer on "General Hospital" has almost become a national pasttime [sic]. Why has he become so pleasingly addictive to millions of viewers? Writer Marilyn Henry takes a probing look at the Luke phenomenon and appraises the skill of the actor who creates him.     General Hospital's Luke Spencer is, without doubt, one of the most original, most lovable, most unpredictable, most addictive and involving characters to hit the screen since Edison invented the whole gaudy business. While it is true that writers create the roles for actors to play, it is also true that a magical actor can inspire writers to stretch a role to the actor's furthest limits. In the case of Tony Geary, who plays Luke, the actor's range would seem to have no limits. Creating a good/bad guy character has never been that difficult. In the forties, movie stars like John Garfield and Alan Ladd built high-flying careers out of being stereotyped in such roles. "The trick," a forties' director once remarked, "is that Ladd is never actually shown being as bad as the script tells us he is." That was the trick in forming the Luke Spencer character. They told us he was a criminal type, a cheap, punk hoodlum with a mob background and they put him in surroundings to substantiate this, but they showed him buying up a poor newsboy's last papers, being loyal and kind to his sister, growing panicked when ordered by his gangster boss to commit a real crime. Most important of all, they let us see that his heart was being purified by love for a beautiful, good girl. This deep, hopeless love made it possible for us to excuse most of his antisocial behavior. Love of Laura motivated everything he did, good or bad. She inspired him to get an education, cut himself free of the mob, seek respectability. She could be wearing a sack, galoshes, and have three zits on her sweet teenaged face and to him she was the epitome of sex appeal. Unrequited love is always a sure-fire grabber, and seeing this low-life type hungering for a girl he believes to be above him, was enough to tenderize even the toughest heart. The long, lingering looks, the secret pain, the sensitive yearning glimpsed behind the hard, cynical facade, was contrast of an electrifying sort. In the beginning, Geary played a rather quiet, almost mysterious Luke. He was emotional and his frustrations were many, but he was usually soft spoken, with just a thin edge of menace. Over the two years, Geary has expanded and evolved that original good/bad guy into a kind of modern mixture of Peter Pan, Romeo, Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield and Sky Masterson, to name a few of the more irresistible of fictional man-child heroes. Luke is so real by now, we feel we know him thoroughly without ever knowing quite what to expect of him. He is so strong, so cunning, yet so vulnerable, so fallible, that we must tune in every day because we never can be sure from one show to the next if he will win or fail. The suspense is built into the character, regardless of plot. Geary seems to add new traits to his character constantly, building Luke in small but significant ways no script writer could have the time to devise. He does this by using a combination of facial expression, body language and revealing bits of business. He is pure energy, moving, swaying, gesturing, enticing the eye and the ear with a fascinating array of visual and vocal shadings. For instance, though no script has said it, Luke is a fanny watcher and a fanny patter. Whenever a pretty girl walks by, his eyes drop just that far. He has Laura's memorized, but he likes to check it out every time he sees her. He has been seen to look at Lesley's, Susan's and even Rose's, and Emma Lutz's wiggle almost had him sliding out of his chair. He has not, however, given Alexandria's more than a cursory glance and thus we know this rather mannish female does not entice him. In fact, his body language tells us he does not like her at all. Whenever Alex touches him, fiddles with his tie, he makes some little readjustment movement, telling us he resents her being that free with him. His posture reinforces this. He leans back, away from her when they talk, while he usually leans forward with people he likes. Geary has designed several walks for Luke. There is the dejected lope for when things are not going so well, and the sassy, head back, arms swinging bounce for when he is feeling cocky and full of himself. His walk with sister Bobbi [sic], arms entwined, is almost a skip. The tall, lean body is graceful, sensual, especially on the dance floor or when he is exercising his talent for skulking. Luke is a case study in insecurities. His slum background is a source of both shame and defiant pride. He wants to rise in the world, be rich and social, but he is always uneasy when he has money and finds careless ways to spend it, thus making himself poor again, which depresses him. When the Quartermaines first invited him to their mansion to discuss his new job, he behaved with an embarrassing self-consciousness, first mocking their expensive artifacts (''Ah--I remember this from that last garage sale,'' he said to himself as he examined a cut-glass bowl), then falling into a noticeable to-the-manor-born air, using big words and elaborate phrasings as he swirled their fine brandy in its snifter. (This act is repeated, in varying degrees, every time he crosses their threshold.) Later he returned to his Aunt Ruby's crumby [sic] apartment to drink her Ripple and make fun of rich people. Real inverted snobbery. In fact, whenever he finds himself in elegant surroundings, Luke tends to behave badly. He has practically disgraced himself every time he has entered the Versaille [sic] Room restaurant, first by going into a jealous frenzy over Laura's first date with Scorpio (he set suave back ten years that night), next by bringing floozy Emma Lutz in with him, and later by stealing everything but the plates off the table the night of his dinner date with Laura. He is far more comfortable in the very surroundings he claims he wants to escape--such as Kelly's diner or his own ratty tenement. He has a dog-like need to define his territory. When he works somewhere, he just takes the place over, regardless of who is boss. He is really quite obnoxious about this, making his own hours, doing just as he pleases in Kelly's, the ELQ offices or, in the past, the Campus Disco. He also owns Ruby's flat, the Whittakers' barn and Slick's beat-up cub. He can relax in these places and be himself. Because Laura belongs to him, he owns her apartment as well, and he is casual about using it for, say, a meeting with Benny, but he bristles if he finds someone there he has not passed, especially someone male. He wants to know about anybody who goes there, including Laura's dad, Rick, and he had a dancing fit when he learned Robert Scorpio had been invited inside. ''Don't ever do that again!" he snarled at Laura unreasonably, during a period when he was trying to convince her they were through. Watching him bob around like the Muppet's Swedish Chef in Calhoun's diner kitchen, using up about a skillet per egg, dropping hamburgers and then sanitizing them with a quick rerun over the grill, planting gum under the tables, was enough to make one want to call the Beecher's Corners' Board of Health. He has cleaned up his act in Rose's kitchen--unless someone too classy for his taste enters his work area. Then he is apt to dribble soup on Edward Quartermaine's tailor-made suit or shake hands with Scorpio after slicing onions. Continued...Click Note!   If you cannot access a page from the links at the bottom of each page, use the links on the Nav Bar to your left.