Leslie Charleson

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Leslie Charleson
Born February 22, 1945 (1945-02-22) (age 63)
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. Flag of the United States
Spouse(s) Bill Demms, 1 April 1988 - 1991
(divorced)

Leslie Charleson (born February 22, 1945 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American actress most famous for her work in daytime television.

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[edit] Career

Her career began on short-lived soap A Flame in the Wind in 1964. She then moved to As the World Turns as Alice Whipple, but when she learned of the length of the contract she was supposed to sign, she left almost immediately.[citation needed] In 1967 she was an original cast member of Love is a Many Splendored Thing. She played Iris Donnelly Garrison and was a part of a highly popular love triangle[citation needed] with David Birney and Donna Mills. She left the show in 1970.

In the 1970's Leslie gave Ron Howard his first on-stage kiss in an episode of Happy Days.

The next seven years brought guest-starring roles in several primetime series. In 1977 she was asked to join the soap General Hospital, which by that time was near the bottom of the ratings and months away from cancellation.[citation needed] Charleson replaced Patsy Rahn as the high-strung Monica Webber, a doctor caught between her husband Jeff Webber and his back-from-the-dead brother, her true love Rick Webber.[citation needed] Charleson's first day was, according to her, nightmarish, for a number of reasons.[citation needed] When she was a teenager, she was president of a local Elvis Presley fan club and he had died the day before she started at GH. She had to take her own clothes to work and do her own makeup because of a hair and wardrobe strike at ABC. Finally, GH's producers had not informed the cast or crew of Rahn's dismissal.[citation needed] She had to break the news to people who were not thrilled to learn of the change.

In spite of these pressures, Charleson was accepted backstage and was a big hit with viewers,[citation needed] especially when Monica entered into an initially loveless marriage with roguish millionaire Alan Quartermaine, played by Stuart Damon. The love/hate relationship between the two, all while Monica fought to be with Rick Webber, electrified viewers and was one of the stories which helped propel the show towards #1 in the ratings. The Webbers were eventually phased out, but Monica and Alan remained, through a series of affairs, divorces and remarriages.

In 1990, Gloria Monty, who had created the Quartermaine family while producing GH, returned and attempted to push them off of the show because she felt they were "old hat".[citation needed] She planned to replace them with the Eckert family. Angry viewer response and falling ratings convinced Monty to change course.[citation needed] Charleson said she felt it was poetic justice that the last few Eckerts had to film nearly all their scenes in the Quartermaine living room.[citation needed] In 1994, Charleson was given some of the best dramatic material of her career, as Monica faced a long battle with breast cancer. Charleson was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for that year's performances. As of July 2007, Charleson remains on GH, but due to the extremely limited role ABC Daytime now has for actors over 40, she has moonlighted on such series as Friends and Dharma & Greg. In February 2007, she protested the firing of her on-screen husband Damon, telling the press that she was not happy with the decisions of the producers and that all the actors on the show over 40 were worried about their own fate.[1]

[edit] Personal life

Charleson is a trained and award-winning equestrian. She married Bill Demms in 1988. They divorced in 1991.

[edit] Roles

[edit] References

  1. ^ ""General Hospital Heartbreak"", Soap Opera Weekly, 2007-02-13, pp. 1-2. 

[edit] External links