When legendary movie star Elizabeth Taylor appeared as Helena Cassadine on General Hospital in 1981, soap opera history was made. Helena attended the highly anticipated wedding of Luke and Laura (Anthony Geary and Genie Francis), and a record 30 million viewers tuned in to that episode. She was angry that Luke killed her megalomaniac husband, Mikkos Cassadine (John Colicos), and Helena put a curse on Luke and Laura.
It was not her first television appearance
With a career spanning back to 1942, Taylor has appeared in many classic movies including Giant (1956), Cleopatra (1963), and The Taming of the Shrew (1967), just to name a few. Back then, it wasn’t common for movie stars to appear on television shows, but by the 1970s, that started to change. Taylor’s first foray into the small screen was on Lucille Ball’s 1970 series, Here’s Lucy. Continuing to appear in films and TV movies, Taylor’s five-episode stint on General Hospital was a huge deal for her fans, and she created a character so evil that the effects of Helena’s schemes are still felt today. In 1997, actress Constance Towers took over the role, and Helena has been spreading mayhem ever since—even in death.
In 1982, the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor joined iconic comedian Bob Hope on his special Bob Hope's Star-Studded Spoof of the New TV Season. The sketch started with the GH theme and was centered in an operating room. Hope hilariously entered, dressed in surgical garb with his arms in the air—not because he had just washed his hands, but because he had been robbed. Taylor played the ditzy Nurse Sanderson. When Hope asked what was happening, she told a long, convoluted story about several people, and it was reminiscent of soap opera plots.
Hope planned on taking her to Acapulco for a romantic getaway, but throughout the sketch, she finds romance with several famous leading men. Famed actor Glenn Ford showed up as another doctor who couldn’t stop kissing her and planned on taking her to Acapulco. After they declared their love for each other, Hope thought he was hearing a TV show and asked that it be turned off, hilariously stating, “I can’t listen to soap operas while I’m operating.”
She hid Ford, and soon after, Geary showed up and started kissing Taylor as the audience went nuts. She hid him, as well, and finally, Hope took the sheet off the patient, revealing that it was Taylor’s ex-husband Richard Burton. They also kissed, and the two started to leave when Hope demanded to know why he was stealing her. In answer, Burton quotes Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities:
‘Tis a far, far better thing I do, than I’ve ever done before. ‘Tis a far, far better rest that I go to, than I’ve ever known.
Although Taylor promised the other characters that she would go to Acapulco with them, she and Burton claimed they were headed to Puerto Valle instead.
Burton and Taylor were famously married
Burton and Taylor had an affair while each was married to another partner. They eventually got divorced and married each other in 1964. Widely known for their fighting, which got them the nickname the "Battling Burtons," they ultimately got divorced in 1974. According to People, she wrote in her memoir:
I've always admitted that I'm ruled by my passions, and I can't pretend I didn't know what I was doing when I became involved with Richard
During their marriage, they appeared together in eleven movies, which included Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Doctor Faustus (1967).
Taylor’s legacy as a major star of the silver screen continues to live on, as does her wonderful General Hospital appearance.
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