Luke and Laura
Luke Spencer and Laura Webber were a supercouple on the American soap opera General Hospital. Luke was played by Anthony Geary and Laura was played by Genie Francis.
Critics of the soap opera genre panned the unlikely pairing, as very few, if any, rape victims fall in love with their rapists. However, the duo became very popular, helping coin the term supercouple in the process. They were married for two decades, and even after their divorce and Laura's subsequent departure from Port Charles, their union is still felt in stories on the serial today.
History
In the beginning, Laura was not paired with Luke, but with Scott Baldwin (played by Kin Shriner). They were married and while Scott was at work and law school, Laura was left at the house, bored. She encouraged Luke, the manager of the Campus Disco, to offer her a job. He did so, and she began to feel more confident about herself. She went on a shopping spree; Scott was not happy when he found out that she had charged $500 over their credit limit. Scott and Laura got into a fight and she left for work.
While Laura was working at the Disco, Luke had fallen in love with her. His boss, Frank Smith, who was affiliated with the Mafia, ordered him to execute a "hit" on someone who had crossed him. He didn't want to, but he knew that if he didn't, he would be fired or possibly killed. He was very depressed, and on the night Laura waited at the Disco for Scott to pick her up, Luke became very distraught and vowed to hold her in his arms before he died. On the floor of the Disco, Luke raped Laura.
Although Laura admitted that she had been raped, she never named Luke as the rapist. She stayed with Scott but ended up falling in love with Luke, as well. Despondent over Frank Smith's order that Luke marry his daughter Jennifer, Luke ordered Laura to tell Scott that he raped her. Instead, she wrote Luke a love letter that Scott eventually found on the day that Luke was to marry Jennifer. He pulled Luke out of the ceremony and onto a yacht, beating him up. As he managed to scramble away, Luke told Laura that they could finally be together, now that Scott knows about their relationship. Commandeering a boat, Luke and Laura escaped from the wedding.
Eventually, they were brought closer together by Laura's divorce from Scott and yet another compromising position in that Luke and Laura helped save the entire town of Port Charles from a deep freeze, orchestrated by Mikkos Cassadine.
They married on November 16, 1981; the episode was the highest-rated hour in soap history. Laura's rival, Bobbie, who was also Luke's sister, was none too happy with the marriage but eventually declared an unofficial truce with Laura.
Eventually the couple had a son, Lucas Lorenzo Spencer, Junior (nicknamed Lucky). When Geary and Francis both decided to leave the show in 1995, it was announced that the characters had fled town in order to avoid retribution from Frank Smith. But they returned in 1993, with their son Lucky, played by Jonathan Jackson.
Luke and Laura eventually had a daughter, Leslie Lou (Lulu), named for Laura's mother. They had to deal with Frank Smith for several more years, and then, when the character of Frank Smith was killed off, by his daughter, then played by Roseanne Barr.
In 1998, Luke and Laura separated. Then, in 2001, after two decades of being married on the show, the duo made headlines when the writers of the program had Luke and Laura divorce. E! Online reported that Luke said (paraphrased) that it was "like seeing the end of an era." [1]
When Genie Francis decided that she wanted to leave the show again in 2002, the plot had her murdering her stepfather, Rick Webber, in a psychotic episode. She was sent to a mental hospital in Switzerland. When Luke's new love interest, Skye Chandler-Quartermaine (Robin Christopher), was framed for killing a police officer, her lawyer set to prove that it was actually Laura who killed the policeman. Instead, it was Laura's "half-aunt" Heather Webber (Robin Mattson) (she had been married to Rick Webber's half brother Jeff), who tricked them all; Skye's lawyer's case was built around circumstantial evidence that the murderer's hair was blonde, and both women had the same hair color, causing the confusion.
- Main article: supercouple
- See also: General Hospital
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