Anthony Geary, famed for Luke Spencer on ABC’s General Hospital, died at 78, his husband Claudio Gama said. Reports say he died from surgery complications.
Anthony Geary, the actor who rose to fame for playing Luke Spencer in ABC’s TV show, ‘General Hospital’ died Sunday, his family confirmed. Geary had undergone a surgery two days before, and died from resulting complication, his husband, Claudio Gama said. He was 78 years old.
“It was a shock for me and our families and our friends,” Gama said to TV Insider, confirming the death. “For more than 30 years, Tony has been my friend, my companion, my husband.”
TMZ reports that the cause of death remains unclear at the moment. However, the outlet confirmed that the actor a surgery in Amsterdam two days ago and reportedly passed away from complications arising from it. It was not immediately clear what led the 78-year-old to the surgery table.
A family member confirmed that he passed away in Amsterdam on Sunday.
Who Is Claudio Gama, his husband?
Claudio Gama is the longtime husband of actor Anthony Geary. They met in 1995 and married in February 2019, then lived together in Amsterdam with their cat Max after Geary’s retirement from acting. Gama was Geary’s partner and companion for over 30 years.
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, I said to her, ‘I hate soap operas,’ and she said, ‘Honey, so do I, and we’re going to change all that,’” he recalled in a 2007 chat for the Television Academy Foundation website The Interviews.
The producer-director told Geary that G.H. was going to create a role for him, but it would only be written if he were going to accept it. “She knew how to talk to an actor. How do you say no to that?” he said.
She described Lucas Lorenzo Spencer as “an antihero, a person who does all the wrong things for the right reasons. He would be a man of action; he wouldn’t be sitting around drinking coffee and talking about who was sleeping with whom. She wanted this character to cause a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”
Geary signed on for 13 weeks, and Luke, a hitman with ties to the mob, made his first appearance on G.H. on Nov. 20, 1978, reuniting with his younger sister, Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman), with whom he was raised in a Florida brothel. When that contract expired, he signed another one for six months.
Arguably the most popular actor in soap opera history, Geary received the Emmy for outstanding actor in a daytime drama series in 1982, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2015 and was nominated nine other times.
