Here Are All The One Life To Live Characters Who Moved To General Hospital
When ABC canceled "One Life to Live" in 2011, airing its last episode on January 13, 2012, according to Soaps.com, the network was determined to also keep some of its stories and characters alive in a variety of ways, along with its other canceled soap, "All My Children." In July of 2011, before either soap aired its final episodes, ABC announced the Prospect Park productions would create versions of the soap that would air online (via Deadline).
By 2013, fans could watch both soaps on Hulu and other streaming platforms, and later that year, Oprah Winfrey's OWN Network picked up the "OLTL" and "AMC" and added them to its schedule for a short time, according to The New York Times. In 2012, just as both soaps were leaving network television, ABC also announced that a handful of "OLTL" characters would be joining its only remaining soap, "General Hospital." That's where things got complicated and confusing, both on-screen and in court.
One Life to Live characters make the journey to Port Charles
Four popular "One Life to Live" actors and characters made their way to "General Hospital" in 2012 when Todd Manning (Roger Howarth), Blair Cramer (Kassie DePaiva), and their daughter Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson), as well as cop John McBain (Michael Easton) moved to Port Charles, NY to continue their lives away from the "OLTL" fictional town of Llanview, PA (via Deadline).
The characters quickly integrated themselves into the show's plots and made the transformation into "GH" characters, but the entire endeavor was short-lived as Prospect Park claimed they now owned the rights to those characters, and also both the network and the production company tried to work out something in which the characters would be shared, nothing had been firmed up before the "OLTL" actors began their lives on "GH." Prospect Park then sued ABC for airing them on a different show (via TV Line).
ABC found a way to still employ One Life to Live actors
When Prospect Park filed its lawsuit, Todd Manning, Blair Cramer, Starr Manning, and John McBain, all left Port Charles as quickly as they came, but all was not lost for the actors who portrayed them. By 2013, ABC announced that three of the performers, Roger Howarth, Kristen Alderson, and Michael Easton would be returning to "General Hospital," but as entirely new characters that had nothing to do with "One Life to Live" (via TV Line). The fourth actor to make the move in 2012, Kassie DePaiva, found work on NBC's "Days of Our Lives" in 2014 where she played Eve Larson (via IMDb).
When the "OLTL" actors returned, "GH" characters had to pretend that Howarth's Franco Baldwin, Alderson's Kiki Jerome, and Easton's Silas Clay weren't the spitting images of Todd, Star, and McBain. In 2015, Alderson left the soap and the role of Kiki was taken over by Hayley Erin (via Soaps in Depth), but in 2022, Howarth and Easton are still with the soap, with Howarth playing Austin Holt (via IMDb) and Easton playing Hamilton Finn (via IMDb).
Another One Life to Live character ends up on General Hospital
In 2016, a judge dismissed Prospect Park's lawsuit against ABC and the network won the rights to its soap opera characters back, according to Soap Central. While the original characters who made their way to "General Hospital" in 2012 never returned, yet another "OLTL" character arrived in Port Charles, but only on a sporadic basis.
This time, Llanview attorney Nora Buchanan, played by Hillary B. Smith on "OLTL" from 1994 until the soap left the airwaves, arrived in Port Charles to represent Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart) when he fought Lulu Falconeri (Emme Rylan) for custody of their daughter, Charlotte. She showed up again later that year when Nora was Olivia Jerome's (Tonja Walker) attorney. In 2019, Nora last took a road trip from Pennsylvania to New York to represent Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom) when he lied to authorities about the whereabouts of his serial killer brother, Ryan Chamberlain (via Soaps In Depth). As of this writing, whether Nora or any other "OLTL" characters ever make their way to "GH" again remains to be seen.