Some people dismiss it as a simple soap opera, but General Hospital has created one generation of new fans after another over the decades. What these loyal audiences come to the show for is the colorful characters that are brought to life by some of the best actors in Hollywood.
We love these General Hospital actors so much, and it’s always a treat to see them appear in other shows or films. However, there are some actors who will never grace us with another performance because they are dead.
In most cases, these deaths came as a complete shock to us. Think you’ll be just as surprised? Keep reading to discover the General Hospital actors we can’t believe are dead!
Bergen Williams
Bergen Williams played the maid Alice Gunderson in General Hospital, and that’s only fitting. After watching 13 years of her character balancing life as a family servant and life as a pro wrestler, it felt a bit like she was our maid as much as she was to the Quartermaine family. She should have had a much longer career, but in 2021, Williams died at age 61 due to Wilson’s disease.
Jay Pickett
Jay Pickett was something of a double threat on the set of General Hospital. Primarily, he played Detective David Harper, but he also memorably spent a few years playing drug dealer Lorenzo Alcazar. We were always happy to see Pickett appear in other works, and in a truly bittersweet twist, he died of a heart attack in 2021 while filming a Western he had written himself.
Jacklyn Zeman
Thanks to being part of General Hospital for over 40 years, Jacklyn Zeman (who played nurse Barbara Jean “Bobbie” Spencer) was beloved by fans all over the world. She was so great in this role that she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy four times. She’ll never appear in General Hospital or anything else, though: Zeman died in May 2023 after battling cancer.
John Reilly
In the glory days of General Hospital, John Reilly was something of a bad boy. He played Sean Donely, a man whose passions ranged from hunting Aztec treasure to hunting other men’s wives. It seemed like he would be part of Hollywood–and our lives–forever, but he passed away in 2021 only two months after turning 86.
Shell Kepler
While all of the names on this list surprised us, few deaths are quite as shocking as that of Shell Kepler, who played registered nurse Amy Vining in General Hospital. She gave over half of her life to this performance and seemed like she had so many more great performances ahead of her. However, the actor died in 2008 due to kidney failure. She was only 49 years old.
Stuart Damon
Some actors are worried about being defined by their major roles, but that idea never seemed to worry Stuart Damon. He began portraying Dr. Alan Quartermaine in General Hospital in 1977 and continued doing so until 2013. Sadly, he struggled with renal failure in the last years of his life, dying in 2021 at the age of 84.
John Ingle
John Ingle managed to establish himself as soap opera royalty: he not only played Edward Quartermaine in General Hospital but was also a big part of the rival soap opera Days Of Our Lives. Ingle stepped away from General Hospital because he felt out of place and wanted to focus on other endeavors. This included training future actors, but nobody else can learn from the master actor…he died in 2012 due to cancer.
Sonya Eddy
General Hospital audiences are very familiar with Sony Eddy, whose Epiphany Johnson character played a major part of both the original show and the spinoff General Hospital: Night Shift. She was a revered character actor who potentially had decades of acting left ahead of her. But she passed away at age 49 from a surgery-related infection.
Billy Miller
Billy Miller is another star who focused on soap operas for nearly his entire life. He performed in All My Children and The Young and the Restless, but we’ll always know him best for playing Jason Morgan and his twin brother on General Hospital (for which he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy). Tragically, Miller died in 2023, and his mother noted afterward how the star had suffered from bipolar depression for many years.
Tyler Christopher
Several people have played Nikolas Cassadine in General Hospital over the years, but our favorite performer was Nikolas Cassadine. Critics mostly agree, which is why Christopher took home a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for this performance in 2016. We thought he’d live to get many more accolades, but this gifted actor died in October 2023 of a cardiac event.