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He's raped a woman. And he'd like to have her again. He's also a compulsive liar, has strong ties with the underworld and is currently a fugitive on the run from both the authorities and a Mafia hitman.
However, the woman he raped is in love with him, he easily walks the tightrope between law and disorder, and, hell ever the hitman seems to like him. In addition to which, since he and his lady have started their cross-country chase, the ratings have soared to an unhearded of forty share. And it the fan mail at Soap Opera Digest is any indication, this disreputable young man may be the biggest star in television today.
But the question is still, "Why?" and no one seems more puzzled than Anthony Geary, the young actor who brings the malevolent Luke Spencer to life every week on "General Hospital."
Lounging in a pair of dark green sweat pants and looking for all the world like Barry Manilow with the frizzies, Tony leans back on his dressing room couch and contemplates the enormous response to Luke Spencer and some recent comparisons to another love/hate character, J.R. Ewing.
"I can't explain the popularity of Luke. But J.R. is truly a bastard, whereas Luke is schizophrenic. He's an anti-hero in the true sense. he can be as dark and as evil as anybody, and yet he can also be as sensitive, as vulnerable, as caring as a boy scout. But he is not a cliche, black and white character--he's very gray, very complex. And if that's a clue to his success, it's that surprise element in him. The audience doesn't know quite what to expect from Luke."
But explanations aside, the reality of soap opera stardom is now a prime part of Tony Geary's life. And has his life changed for the better?
"Everybody wants to know who I am now and I'm pleased with that, because it took me fourteen years to achieve that. But it also causes problems in that I'm a very private person and a loner by choice. Let me make that very clear, because I said that before and an article came out and said, 'The poor guy goes home and cries himself to sleep, he's got nobody to talk to. Not true"
Tony was born in Coalville, Utah (pop. 800) into a Mormon family; his father the head of a construction company, his mother a housewife. Pleasant enough surrounding, perhaps, but not quite the ideal environment for an aspiring performer. However, Tony found his artistic oasis in the local movie theatre and attended his first performance there at the grand old age of three months.
"My parents had had a fight, and my father was so angry with my mother that he walked me to the movie theatre in the dead of winter. When we got back, my mother was hysterical, screaming , "Where's my baby, where's my baby', and my father simply explained that we'd gone to movies ever since." Tony smiles at the memory and then adds, "But I don't do it to make my mother angry anymore.
"I was also a terrific liar as a child, and I believe my lies. So it's a natural step into acting. And I was so out-of-sync with what was going on in Coalville that I spent most of my time alone in front of the television or at the piano. My parents would have like me to finish college--I think my mother always hoped I'd become a teacher. But they've always been supportive. They're quiet country people and I have not idea where they found the courage to let their son go into this crazy business. Except maybe they knew from the beginning that I'm the kind of person who's either headed for Hollywood or prison!"
The craziness started in Tony's sophomore year at the University of Utah. Every season, the theatre department would bring in a professional to work with the students on a show. The professional was Jack Albertson. The show was THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES, and Tony was cast as hi son.
"Three months after the run, Jack called me and said he was going to tour with the show in Hawaii and Los Angeles, and would I play his son again. I agreed, got excellent reviews, signed with an agent, stayed in Los Angeles--and then didn't work!"
Ironically, Tony finally found work by leaving California for the various summer-stock companies and regional theatres around the country. Eventually, he returned to Hollywood (but not before a terrible three-month stint selling toys--"That was really acting." confides Tony), and his first television appearance on ROOM 222. Dozens of other jobs followed, including a continual role on daytime's BRIGHT PROMISE and being cast in SORORITY KILL, an ABC late-night movie mystery which also featured Linda Kelsey of LOU GRANT, and marked Tony's first association with GENERAL HOSPITAL producer Gloria Monty.
In addition to acting, however, Tony was able to develop his other considerable talents as a writer and radio producer. In fact, he won the prestigious Cindy Award for his 20-minute radio drama, SOUND OF SUNSHINE, SOUND OF RAIN, the story of 24 hours in the life of a blind black child.
"The Cindys are like the Academy Awards of documentaries. The big winners that year were SCARED STRAIGHT and the Henry Winkler show, WHO ARE THE DeBOLTS? We came in at third place behind them and it was beautiful! I really love that project and eventually I hope to transform it into an animated film.
"As to writing, I've finished two screenplays and I'd like to write a novel. But when I started GH, I was only doing two shows a week. Now I'm up to four or five and I haven't had a chance to do any writing for about six months." (Tony's current work-in-progress is entitled STERNO's DELIGHT, and is being written with former GH co-star Kin Shriner in mind.)
But if Anthony Geary--writer--had a chance to write Luke Spencer--the character--how would he change him?
"I really enjoy Luke's sense of humor. I'd like to see more of that. But I really can't complain. I think I'm given a tour de force daily and I don't ever expect to have one part that will give me the opportunity to do as much as I've done on this show. I do a lot of rewriting of dialogue because Gloria Monty's given me that freedom. I don't change the direction of the scenes, but I do take the thoughts that are written and put them in different words. Any very rarely have I had any flack from Gloria about it. So I feel like I've gotten as much control with Luke as I could ask for."
An if Tony enjoys control in his work he prefers the same kind of control in his personal life. He's single, has never been married, and thinks he knows why:
"People don't like me. When I'm working, I'm great. But when I'm not, I'm not easy to be around. I get crazed with frustration, my energy all goes interior and I become a real mess, and that's why people don't like me. You'll notice that whoever called just now, I pulled the plug out because I am working" (And indeed, earlier in the interview, when his dressing room phone rang, Tony declared, "I'm not answering this," and pulled the phone out of the wall.)
"I like to party and I have relationships, but I don't pursue tight, personal relationships. I like many of the people around here very much, and I enjoy being with them, but I don't party with them. Now that Kin Shriner's leaving to do TEXAS, we're finally going to have a drink together."
Tony pauses for a moment and then claps his hands together. You know what I really want? I want to be a multimillionaire and I want to have a studio and I want to produce and direct and act and get all my favorite people together and watch them play--I really do! That's what I've always wanted and that's what I'm going for. I'm still connected to my own family and I have a lot of support from them. I don't feel a need to get married and create my own family out here."
What Tony does feel a need for is to act. "I'm real a real workaholic. And granted, the work is physically tiring, but also artistically stimulating." And Tony doesn't want to confine his talents to GENERAL HOSPITAL. Eventually, he wants to branch out into other arenas of entertainment, particularly feature films.
"I've already done several film, two of which were never released. One was a Western shot in Utah with one horse. They're threatening to release the other one, which is called BLOOD SABBATH. I've got star billing, but I was only twenty-two when I did it, so hopefully nobody will recognize me!"
Tony is extremely proud of his third film, however--a small part in Dalton Trumbo's highly underrated anti-war film, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN.
"I worked with Donald Sutherland, who played Christ, and I was one of a group of soldiers who were waiting for a train. Christ played cards with us while we waited. It was very bizarre, but I had a lovely moment when he explained that we were dead and I broke down and told him, 'It isn't fair! I've got a son at home that I haven't seen and I want to see him.' And Christ turned to me and said: 'You will see him. When he is sixty and you're still twenty-three.'"
That's a pretty heavy mystical thought, and it helps cue us into a discussion regarding reincarnation, a subject Tony feels very strongly about.
"I'm sure that I've been here before and that I'll keep coming back until I get it right. And once I do, I won't have to play this game anymore, although right now I'm very fond of the physical game and I don't want to die. I think that I'm here to communicate and the best way I can do that is to act. I know that I lived in Greece in a past life. I know that I lived in France and I also know that I lived in Australia.
When pressed for an explanation as to how he knows, Tony eagerly offers one: "I went to Greece on vacation and was standing near the Acropolis with a group of tourists. Now, I had never seen the layout of the Acropolis, yet I knew where everything was. And at one point, someone turned to the guide and said, 'Where's the Theatre of Dionysius?' and I said, It's down that hill right over there,' and I went...'WHAT!' I had no way of knowing where the theatre was, but I ran down to the stage and once I got there I knew I'd been there before. The feelings came back and it was overwhelming. You know, everyone gets feelings of deja vu like they've been someplace before, but this was much stronger--as if something important had happened to me on that stage.
"I feel that many of the people I know and work with are people I've known in past lives. Jackie Zeman and I have known each other before and we both know it was in France. First impressions, I think are many times memories."
But if Tony Geary is fascinated with his past, don't get the idea that he lives there. He's very much a man of today. And although he still considers himself a solitary person, he admits that the enthusiasm and affection of his fans have helped him shuck a layer or two of his loner's shell.
"Harriett Epstein, who does the Soaps Alive personal appearance tours, was after me for a long time but I was afraid to do it. Finally I agreed. You know, Luke is more aggressive than I am and I've found that I can take care of a lot of situations by snapping into Luke. So the day of the show, I dressed really Luke-ish, walked onto the stage and three-thousand people went nuts. It was wonderful! I got all my rock-star fantasies out at one time. I felt like the Beatles."
It is a feeling he is going to have to get used to, because after years of struggle and obscurity, Tony Geary has finally arrived--and there are a lot of people waiting to meet him. And although that might bring a frown to the face of the private man Tony professes to be, you can't but feel that somewhere, deep inside, the public man is grinning from ear to ear.