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Former General Hospital Castmates Unpack the Dark Days That Led to Her Surprising Exit: ‘I Was a Little Scared of You’
Tuesday, January 24th, 2023
“I was just a kid, just a stupid, naive kid who was still finding her way.”
Alicia Leigh Willis’ exit from General Hospital in 2006 came as a shock. “People were saying, ‘Why are you leaving the show? They are offering you another four years. You are a working actor. What are you doing?’” the actress recalled during the January 22 edition of former castmate Maurice Benard’s State of Mind (which you can watch in full below). “And I was like, ‘I can’t stay. I am so unhappy.’”
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The reason? At least in part, the Emmy winner who played her big brother, Sonny. Unaware that he was living with bipolar disorder, “I didn’t know what you were going through,” Willis said. “All I knew was that you and I were always close. I always had a way of taking things really personally. So if someone was in a bad mood around me, I felt like it was my fault, like I had done something. So for a long time, when I came to work, I didn’t know what Maurice I was going to get.
“I would come to work, and one day you would be the most charming, lovely person, and then another day I was a little scared of you,” she continued. “I was like, ‘Does he hate me? Did I do something?’ I sent you an email where we talked about it a little bit. I didn’t understand it. I was just a kid, just a stupid, naive kid who was still finding her way.”
Things Can Only Get Better
Benard acknowledged that Willis’ run on the soap coincided with some trying times. “I was going through some dark stuff. And I took it out on Tamara [Braun, ex-Carly],” he said. “I don’t feel good about it, but I apologized. I was a different guy then.”
Unfortunately, the guy he was then wasn’t able to be there for his on-screen sib the way that he might’ve been today. “I remember the last year at the show, it was really dark, and I would go to my dressing room and just cry,” Willis said. “And it wasn’t just that. That was a big part of it.
“I felt like we had such a good connection that I didn’t feel like I had anyone to turn to. It almost felt like high school in a way,” she added. “There was a time when you didn’t really know who your friends were and who had your back and who didn’t.”
Viva La Difference
Ironically, Willis and the Benard of today probably would’ve been able to hash everything out, and Spencer’s mother might still be alive and well in Port Charles. “If we had had this kind of dialogue back then,” she said, “think about how much easier it would have been for all of us to just talk to each other.”
Find out why more soap stars left their spots on the frontburner in the below photo album.
Video: YouTube/State of Mind
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Image: Howard Wise/JPI
1/26
<p>Never let it be said that the eight-time Emmy winner didn’t know when to say when. In 2015, the <em>General Hospital</em> legend decided to pack it in after 44 years off and on as Luke Spencer (and lookalike cousin Bill Eckert). “I’m just weary of the grind and have been for 20 years,” he told <a href="https://tvline.com/2015/05/08/general-hospital-anthony-geary-leaving-luke/" target="_blank">TV Insider</a> at the time. “I really don’t want to die, collapsing in a heap, on that <em>General Hospital</em> set one day. That wouldn’t be too poetic.” True — although it would’ve made for one hell of a memorable exit.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/26
<p>From 1964-75, the leading lady and frontburner mainstay amassed a large fan following as beleaguered <em>Another World</em> heroine Alice Frame. Unfortunately, the NBC soap’s headwriter was <em>not</em> among her admirers. In his memoir <em>Eight Years in Another World</em>, the late, great Harding Lemay recalled being particularly horrified that she’d once “turned what was written as muted, catatonic grief into a histrionic display more fitting to a 19th-century madhouse.” Finally, she was fired and replaced with, in the scribe’s estimation, “a far better actress.”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
3/26
<p>Shortly after announcing that she had left <em>Days of our Lives</em>, where she’d played Hope Brady for nearly 40 years, the veteran actress revealed why: The powers that be wanted her to <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/573671/kristian-alfonso-not-retiring-days-of-our-lives-hope/" target="_blank">sit out four or five months</a> before starting a new storyline in which Hope got involved with a Navy SEAL. The show’s top scribe, she suggested to <em>Access Hollywood</em>, “didn’t want to write it. I don’t know what his reasons are.” She later reprised her role on spinoff <em>Beyond Salem</em> and also on the mother ship.</p>
Image: CBS
4/26
<p>The Emmy winner loved his time at <em>The Young and the Restless</em> as Malcolm Winters; it began his acting career, for Pete’s sake! But in a <a href="https://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2001/1231-moore.php" target="_blank">SoapCentral</a> interview in 2000, he admitted that “I’ve done a lot of soul-searching. I really had to look at my career and my future.” Finally, he took his agents’ advice and took a leap of faith that has paid off handsomely: Since leaving Genoa City, Moore has become a primetime mainstay; he currently headlines his own series, CBS’ reboot of <em>S.W.A.T.</em></p>
Image: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images
5/26
<p>Despite slaying as Delia Coleridge, the go-to bad girl of <em>Ryan’s Hope</em>, the original cast member was fired in 1983 for gaining weight. “I had taken cortisone for a skin infection,” she told <a href="https://ryansbaronline.tripod.com/kristensod87.html" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in ’87. “The doctor screwed up the prescription, and I blew up. It caused me three years of absolute torture. My system was so out of whack, and [the powers that be] were very intolerant of it… They wanted glitz, glitz, glitz, glitz… and it wasn’t particularly what I was physically capable of doing.” </p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
6/26
<p>With <em>Young & Restless</em> leading lady Amelia Heinle, the soap-hopper had created that rarest of rarities — a bonafide soap supercouple in “Ashtoria.” But just after New Year 2022, the news broke that he had been let go. WTH happened? “I naively and inadvertently <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/620149/young-restless-why-was-richard-burgi-fired-reason-covid-protocols/" target="_blank">violated the show’s COVID policy</a>,” he explained. “I felt terrible about it. I still do. It bothers me mightily, but it is what it is.” Nevertheless, the class act expressed his well wishes for both the show and his successor, <em>Guiding Light</em> vet Robert Newman (Josh).</p>
Image: CBS
7/26
<p>Unhappy with her work environment and the storyline that was being written for <em>Guiding Light</em>’s Alexandra Spaulding, the daytime legend took her annual eight-week vacation in 1992 — and never returned, thanks to an out in her contract. In an interview with <em>TV Guide</em>, she recalled that “somebody said, ‘Maybe Beverlee’s not familiar with the contract.’ Well, of course she was — she wrote it, you bozos!”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
8/26
<p>The Emmy winner didn’t mince words when explaining why he’d quit <em>Days of our Lives</em> in 2020 after nearly a decade as Eric Brady. Storylines that were promised him, he told <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/574649/greg-vaughan-why-quit-days-of-our-lives-extra/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “never came to fruition. I didn’t feel like all of the things that were being told to me were being delivered.” As a result, he wound up feeling “like a glorified extra in everybody else’s storyline.” Vaughan returned to the show two years later.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
9/26
<p>After 13 years as <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ Victoria Newman, the then-two-time Emmy winner walked in 2003 over “creative differences” with then-executive producer David Shaughnessy, <a href="https://www.soapcentral.com/young-and-restless/news/2003/0929-tom.php" target="_blank">SoapCentral</a> reported. Even before she had last aired on the CBS soap, she’d already made her debut as <em>One Life to Live</em>’s new Kelly Cramer. Now, of course, Tom is back on the West Coast and back on CBS, playing Katie Logan on <em>Young & Restless</em>’ sister soap, <em>The Bold and the Beautiful.</em></p>
Image: CBS
10/26
<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ original Jack Abbott made no bones about the fact that he walked in 1989 over his dissatisfaction with the amount of airtime being given to a green rookie: Lauralee Bell (Christine), who just happened to be the daughter of the show’s creators. She didn’t hold it against him, though. And, she told the <a href="https://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/06/flashback-bell-responds-to-lester-1989.html" target="_blank"><em>Daily News of Los Angeles</em></a>, “if he ever took it out on me, he was sorry.”</p>
Image: ABC
11/26
<p>Shortly after New Year 2023, <em>General Hospital</em> made Britt Westbourne the hook killer’s latest victim — for a super sweet reason. “I’m in love,” her portrayer told <a href="http://soapoperadigest.com" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “and have been doing long-distance for almost a year now, and my partner cannot move to the States at the moment.” Beyond that, the actress was ready to chase after some other career goals.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
12/26
<p>When the original cast member of <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> revealed in 2012 that he’d donned his last Speedo as Ridge Forrester, viewers all had the same question: Why? Why? Why? (Yes, we always asked it three times.) Was it salary issues? “It had to do with everything involved with it,” he told <a href="https://ew.com/article/2012/08/23/ronn-moss-bold-and-the-beautiful-exit-interview/" target="_blank"><em>Entertainment Weekly</em></a>. “Everything combined.” Beyond that, he felt that he was owed “the chance to do all the creative things that I haven’t had a chance to do in 25 years” because of the job.</p>
Image: CBS
13/26
<p>After <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ Phyllis Summers slipped into a coma in 2013, her portrayer told <a href="https://www.sj-r.com/story/entertainment/television/2013/08/01/exclusive-michelle-stafford-dishes-her/43808797007/" target="_blank"><em>TV Guide</em></a> that “a primary reason I have left is that I want to do comedy” — which she did with her web series, <em>The Stafford Project</em>. “I don’t feel comfortable divulging all of my many personal reasons for leaving the show, but I’ve been very honest with the people [there] and with the fans that there is no malice.” After a 2014-19 run as Nina Reeves on <em>General Hospital</em>, the Emmy winner returned to her old stomping grounds, replacing her replacement, Gina Tognoni.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
14/26
<p>“I got into entrepreneurship probably about [2013],” the <em>Days of Our Lives</em> Emmy winner told Soaps.com a decade later, “and once 2019 rolled around, I had to make a decision.” Would he stay on as Sonny Kiriakis or go? In the end, he thought, “‘It’s just kind of time. I want to move to Florida. I want to be by my family. I want to do entrepreneur stuff full-time.” And so he did.</p>
Image: Denis Guignebourg/JPI
15/26
<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em> actor, who’d played Cane Ashby for more than a decade, was as “shocked and gutted” as his fans to announce that he’d been let go in the fall of 2019. “But sadly, it seems that <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/comings-and-goings/539026/daniel-goddard-leaving-yr/" target="_blank">without Neil and Lily</a>, there just is no Cane.” But wait, Lily’s back now… could that possibly mean what we hope that it does? Click here for the juicy details of <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/574800/young-restless-cane-returning-keep-billy-lily-apart/" target="_blank">the story we have in mind</a>!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
16/26
<p>In the late 1990s, the Emmy winner (now <em>General Hospital</em> femme fatale Ava Jerome) was just beginning her daytime career — and wowing <em>As the World Turns</em>’ audience as Carly Tenney — when she decided to make her maternity leave a permanent leave. “I was told I would only get six weeks” with my firstborn, she explained to <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/tbt-maura-west/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 1997. “I <em>made</em> this child. I had to do right by him.” Thankfully, she was ultimately enticed to return and become the daytime legend that she now is.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
17/26
<p>Although when news spread in the spring of 2022 that <em>The Young and the Restless</em> had dropped the Emmy winner, there were signs that Rey Rosales was about to be thrust into a love triangle with wife Sharon and pal Chelsea Lawson… Well, those signs were misleading; his story was headed for the finish line. “Maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall,” said the actor on the <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/627226/young-restless-jordi-vilasuso-why-he-really-left-rey-exit/" target="_blank"><em>Making It Work</em> podcast</a> that he hosts with his real-life missus. Near the end, “the scripts that I was given were very minimal.”</p>
Image: Chris Haston/NBC
18/26
<p>After 13 years as <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ trouble magnet Gabi Hernandez, the fan favorite made the difficult decision to leave the role of a lifetime — in part to advance her career and in part to honor her late father, who died by suicide not long after she was cast. “I had always spoken to my dad about my dreams,” Banus told <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/essay/camila-banus-why-i-left-days-of-our-lives-rcna85120" target="_blank"><em>Today</em></a> in 2023. “He knew my ultimate goal is to create amazing stories and cultivate characters — to be on the big screen… He didn’t stay to see his dreams realized — the depression took over. I need to reach mine for him, and me, and our family.”</p>
Image: Bill Nation/Sygma/Getty Images
19/26
<p>In 1991, the <em>Santa Barbara</em> leading lady had just begun a split-personality storyline for her beloved character, Eden Capwell, when she herself split — for primetime. The Emmy winner left the role that had allowed her to put <em>All My Children</em> mean girl Liza Colby in rearview to star in <em>Palace Guard</em>, which aired only twice before being cancelled.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
20/26
<p>When the Daytime Emmy winner left his role of Dylan McAvoy on <em>The Young and the Restless</em> in 2016, he tweeted that “it feels right to move on to <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/48809/steve-burton-announces-decision-to-leave-yr/" target="_blank">new adventures in my life</a>.” But just a year later, he leapt back into an <em>old</em> adventure, returning to <em>General Hospital</em> as Jason Morgan, the hitman he’d previously played for nearly 20 years.</p>
Image: ABC
21/26
<p>After <em>General Hospital</em> reinstated the actor as Jason, and gave recast Billy Miller a new character to play (in Jason’s heretofore-unknown twin brother, Drew Cain), he wound up being shown to the exit. The show “has let me go,” he announced in November 2021, “because of the vaccine mandate” that was put in place to safeguard the cast and crew from COVID-19. He later reprised his <em>Days of Our Lives</em> role of Harris Michaels.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
22/26
<p><em>Young & Restless</em> viewers couldn’t figure out why, after the show struck pay dirt with the pairing of Devon Hamilton and Hilary Curtis, it would let her portrayer Mishael Morgan leave. “They were <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/51037/interview-mishael-morgans-yr-departure-explained-by-manager/" target="_blank">not prepared to give her a raise</a>,” her manager explained in 2018. “We felt that we were put in the position that we had no choice but to explore other options… It was sort of a ‘Take it or leave it’ scenario.” A year later, a deal was struck that returned Morgan to the soap as Hilary’s surprise twin sister, Amanda Sinclair.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
23/26
<p>The Emmy winner had been winning raves for his work as <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ Stefan DiMera when he was abruptly replaced in 2019 by Brandon Barash. Being apart from his family in Indiana while he was working in L.A. weighed heavily on Christopher, he later explained to <em>Soaps in Depth</em>, adding, “Alcohol addiction is something I’ve battled since I was a teenager. I’ve had some amazing successes with it and some really awful failures.” Sadly, the <em>General Hospital</em> alumnus <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/gallery/tyler-christopher-remembered-tribute-photos-general-hospital/" target="_blank">passed away in 2023</a>.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
24/26
<p>In 2018, <em>Young & Restless</em> fans feared that they’d seen the last of the Emmy winner as a regular cast member. “Time for a little more <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/51054/eileen-davidson-leaving-yr/" target="_blank">control over my day-to-day</a>!” she said as she dropped to recurring status on the show. But our worries proved unfounded, and before we knew it, she and alter ego Ashley Abbott were back in the thick of things.</p>
Image: NBC
25/26
<p>Five years after the debut of <em>Santa Barbara</em> — and the introduction of sterling-silver-tongued devil Mason Capwell — his fan-favorite portrayer called it a day. “I felt like the show deteriorated after [its creators] left,” he told <a href="http://santabarbara-online.com/InterviewLDavies2.htm" target="_blank"><em>Santa Barbara</em> Online</a> in 2009. In his estimation, the daytime drama had lost not only its sense of humor but its heart.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
26/26
