General Hospital Relationship Timeline: Anna And Duke
If you live in the fictional town of Port Charles, there is nobody you want coming to your rescue more than super spy Anna Devane (Finola Hughes). This "General Hospital" heroine has been solving mysteries and apprehending villains since 1985. Trained as a World Security Bureau (WSB) agent, Anna also worked as a double agent for the more crooked spy agency, the DVX. That painted some shades of gray onto this mostly heroic character and those shades of gray sometimes have her falling for men who do not have trouble bending the law when they see fit.
While some "GH" fans might say that first husband, Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers), a WSB agent who never double crossed the agency, is the true love of Anna's life, others may say it's Duke Lavery (Ian Buchanan), a debonair mobster Anna would have given her life for. They seemed like an unlikely pair, but they were very much in love and eventually married before outside forces tore them apart.
Anna falls for a dashing nightclub owner
When Duke Lavery first arrived on the "General Hospital" scene in 1986, he immediately felt an attraction for spitfire police commissioner Anna Devane, who was very attracted to him, as well. Eventually, Robert informed Anna that Duke's nightclub was a front for money laundering and turned down his first marriage proposal. By then, Duke was so in love with Anna he was willing to give up his mob life to be with her and even teamed up with Robert to bring down mob boss Mr. Big.
Duke and Anna were finally free to be together and married in a lavish ceremony. When Anna became pregnant, they thought their lives would be perfect, but danger kept getting in the way as it frequently does for Anna. After Anna was kidnapped by Grant Putnam (Brian Patrick Clarke), Duke tried to save her, but another mobster named Victor Jerome rescued her instead. However, another dangerous situation caused Anna to lose the baby — and lost Duke too when he appeared to die in the late 1980s from a gunshot wound.
Anna goes on with life and death for years without Duke
After Duke died, Anna's heart was shattered, but Robert Scorpio was there to pick up the pieces and they wed for the second time with daughter, Robin (Kimberly McCullough), by their side. Robin was thrilled to finally have her parents together, but then tragedy struck and both Robert and Anna were presumed dead in a boat explosion, along with the evil Cesar Faison (Anders Hove), who spent his life obsessed with Anna.
Several years later, Anna turned up very much alive in Pine Valley appearing on "General Hospital"'s sister soap, "All My Children," where she married Dr. David Hayward (Vincent Irizarry) and gave birth to his daughter, Leora. After Leora died while still an infant, Anna and David broke up and she eventually made her way to Port Charles to reunite with Robin and a very-much-alive Robert. That's when Anna learned that other allegedly-dead characters that fans hadn't seen in years were alive as well.
Anna and Duke are reunited in a very strange way
Anna could barely believe it when she saw Duke alive and well in Port Charles in 2012 and thought they could pick up life where they left off all those years ago. However, the man who looked like Duke turned out to be Cesar Faison in a mask (via TV Guide).
Anna was crushed, but then in an odd twist, it turned out that Duke really was alive and had faked his death and entered the witness protection program. Duke was even there for her as she tracked down a kidnapped Robin. However, Duke seemed to never learn from the past and started working for the mob again, according to Soaps In Depth. This time, he worked for Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard).
That's when things went terribly wrong once again and Carlos Rivera killed Duke in a mob hit just after Anna had agreed to run away with him and leave Port Charles forever. Anna was so grief-stricken that she went against her own moral code and shot Carlos in cold blood.
Duke returns to Anna in a variety of ways
Although Duke's second death in 2015 seems to be very real, as he has not returned (yet), Anna was thrilled to learn he had a long-lost son he never knew about named Griffin Monroe (Matt Cohen). Dr. Monroe arrived in Port Charles wanting to know the woman his father loved and Anna became a mother figure to him until he left town to take a job elsewhere.
Duke has also appeared to Anna in several dream sequences, telling her she can indeed go on without him. In one fantasy, they even danced their famous tango. Since then, Anna has forged ahead in various romances and nearly married Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) in 2021. In 2022, Robert is still there as Anna's best friend and confidante, but she would much rather spend her time with Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart) instead.