Legendary soap opera star Leslie Charleson has died at the age of 79.
Charleson, who became a daytime icon thanks to her role as Monica Quartermaine on General Hospital, died Sunday after a brief illness.
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my dear friend and colleague, Leslie Charleson,” General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini wrote in a statement shared to social media. “Her enduring legacy has spanned nearly 50 years on General Hospital alone and, just as Monica was the heart of the Quartermaines, Leslie was a beloved matriarch of the entire cast and crew. I will miss our daily chats, her quick wit and incredible presence on set. On behalf of everyone at General Hospital, my heartfelt sympathy goes out to her loved ones during this difficult time.”
Charleson, who was the show’s longest-running castmember. joined the soap in 1977 and was a constant on General Hospital until her most recent appearance in December 2023. According to Variety, the four-time Daytime Emmy nominee had suffered several falls that prevented her from getting around in recent years. She was hospitalized last week “after one such fall.”
After getting her start on TV with appearances on A Flame in the Wind, As the World Turns, The Rockford Files, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, Happy Days (where she played a love interest for Ron Howard’s Richie Cunningham), and other programs, Charleson was tapped to replace Patsy Rahn as Monica in August 1977.
“I started the show the day Elvis Presley died, and being such a huge fan, I of course was very upset driving to the studios, and then getting there I was told that they hoped I had brought my own wardrobe and makeup because there was a strike going on — and that was before I even got in the building,” the Missouri native told Soap Opera Digest in 2022. “Then I got in the building and I realized that no one really liked me, because the girl playing Monica before me was very rudely fired.”
Alongside the late Stuart Damon (who played Monica’s husband Alan Quartermaine), Charleson formed one half of one of TV’s best-loved showmances.
When Soap Opera Digest asked her what made Monica and Alan’s relationship such a hit with fans, she said it was “because they had been through so much.”
“And no matter what they’d gone through, they always found their way back to each other. They were each other’s one great love,” she said.
Charleson also played Monica on the show’s spinoffs Port Charles and General Hospital: Night Shift.
But spending the bulk of her career becoming a fixture on daytime television wasn’t something that she envisioned for herself when she first inked a deal to join General Hospital.
“I only signed on for two years, and I don’t know what happened,” Charleson told Digital Journal in 2019. “I like her spunk, independence and everything about her. Back then, there weren’t a lot of good female roles that had that. It was an amazing time, and it was strong material to act.”