“One Life to Live” Return Puts Fate of “General Hospital” Characters in Question
By John Randolph
Las Vegas Informer
When Prospect Park announced late in 2011 that the “One Life to Live” relaunch (along with “All My Children”) was not going to happen, three of Llanview’s most popular characters, Todd Manning, Starr Manning and John McBain, moved to Port Charles.
This move allowed the characters to live on and become part of the “General Hospital” landscape.
Fast forward one year later and Prospect Park has the necessary deals in place to restart both “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.” While this may be good news for fans of those shows, it leaves these three characters in limbo.
Prospect Place owns the rights to all of “One Life to Live’s” characters, even those who have moved on to Port Charles.
The three are expected to depart “General Hospital” for at least a short time due to this agreement. Prospect Park is expecting to launch the new “One Life to Live” in Spring.
Michael Easton (John McBain) stated on his Facebook page that he was not going to be “at General Hospital after February 8th.”
According to a statement by ABC, “General Hospital is excited about Easton, Alderson and Howarth staying on the show, and we are exploring ways to allow that to happen.”
On Friday, Prospect Park responded, “Prospect Park understands that General Hospital has featured Llanview transplants Michael Easton (John) and Kristen Alderson (Starr) among others while we arranged production of the new version of One Life to Live. These characters, who we own under our agreement, are obviously essential to our production efforts, and a large reason we licensed the program. We also understand that legions of General Hospital fans have grown to love these actors and characters in a short time.”
The statement continued, “So even though we are paying ABC millions of dollars to license the shows, we have been, and continue to be willing to equally share the characters with General Hospital and ABC. It’s a win-win for the actors, the shows and fans, who love all of the shows and storylines. We hope to work out these agreements with ABC and the actors.”
ABC has not responded to Prospect Park’s statement. One actor not mentioned in the above statement was Roger Howarth (Todd Manning).
Once launched, the new “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” will be available online daily via Hulu and iTunes. The shows are going to be shown in a 30 minute format with limited commercials.
Currently, the following cast members have signed on to be part of the new “One Life to Live”: Erika Slezak (Victoria Lord), Robin Strasser (Dorian Lord), Tuc Watkins (David Vickers), Jerry verDorn (Clint Buchanan), Robert S. Woods (Bo Buchanan), Hillary B. Smith (Nora Buchanan), Melissa Archer (Natalie Buchanan Banks), Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer), Florencia Lozano (Tea Delgado), Andrew Trischitta (Jack Manning), Kelley Missal (Danielle Manning) and Josh Kelly (Cutter Wentworth).
Actors in a recurring role include Sean Ringgold (Shaun Evans), Shenaz Treasury (Rama Patel) and Nick Choksi (Vimal Patel).
February 2, 2013 - 10:31 pm
This is rediculous we general hospital fans are loving having Todd Star and John on the show. Please don’t let these characters go it will really disappoint us followers it was bad enough you couldn’t keep jason and he went to y&r.Please do whatever it takes to keep these characters on the show. How can they cancel those shows. Put these ppl out of jobs then tell them they have to come back under contract. Thats terrible. You guys wonder why these soaps loose ratings this is the reason. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it. You should’t have canceled those shows in the first place. But we love Todd Star and John on GH please listen to your viewers.
February 13, 2013 - 1:27 am
It should have been GH that got cancelled along with AMC not OLTL. I use to watch all three and GH got really boring and years later so did AMC. OLTL should come back to tv and get rid of GH.