Genie Francis (born Eugenie Ann Francis on May 26, 1962 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA) is an extremely popular and beloved actress best known as Laura Spencer on the ABC daytime drama General Hospital, whom she played from 1976 to 2006 at various times. Her father, Ivor Francis, a Canadian actor of English descent, died in 1986 from the effects of multiple strokes. Her mother, Rosemary Daley, is a former actress/model of Lithuanian descent. Genie is a confirmed Catholic. She has an older brother Ivor Jr., a younger brother Kenneth, and an older half-sister Shelley.
Laura's love affair and marriage to Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary), a man who had drunkenly raped her at one time, turned General Hospital into the most-watched daytime drama of the 1980s. Luke and Laura became an international phenomenon and the most popular super couple in daytime history, appearing on the covers of TV Guide, Us Weekly, and People magazines. The couple wed on November 16, 1981, with 30 million viewers tuning in. The episode was the highest-rated hour in soap opera history. At the peak of her success, Francis left the show in 1982 to try her hand at primetime, and fans were devastated by her departure. Soon after, she landed a starring role in her own series, Bare Essence, which was not a success. Nevertheless, she remained a fan favorite and viewers were delighted when she returned to General Hospital in 1983 for a limited run to coincide with the departure of Luke when Geary decided to leave the series.
Through the years, other daytime soaps have pursued Francis because of her tremendous popularity. She appeared on Days of Our Lives as Diana Colville from 1987 to 1989 and on All My Children as con artist and incest victim Ceara Connor Hunter from 1990 to 1992. She reprised her role as Ceara on Loving in November 1991. These roles were the product of Francis trying to shed her image as the Pauline-esque heroine she got while on General Hospital. Eventually, she grew to accept the image and returned to GH in 1993. In early 1997 she took an absence from the show to have her second child and stayed away nearly a year and a half, an eternity in soap time, provoking speculation that she had to be threatened with legal action in order to return at all (as she finally did in spring 1998).
In September 2002 she abruptly left General Hospital following ABC's refusal to work out a contract she wanted. Laura's exit storyline entailed killing her beloved stepfather Rick Webber, then losing her mind and not remembering her husband Luke or any of her children. In 2004 she told USA Today that she thought ABC wanted her out after a 2001 interview where she admitted to heavy drug abuse during the Luke & Laura early '80s heyday.
In 2004, she was offered a return to General Hospital, but Francis turned down the offer. In June 2006, Francis began negotiating with the casting directors on the show in returning to the role of Laura Spencer for a limited run through November. She returned to the show with great fanfare to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Luke and Laura's wedding. Her long-awaited return spiked the ratings and generated a flurry of publicity that the show had not seen in years. The magic of Luke and Laura was recaptured. Though she reprised the role for only one month, Francis's stint was so successful that she garnered a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Daytime Drama. She was widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Emmy, and on June 15, 2007, Francis won her first Daytime Emmy Award. "Oh my goodness!" she said. "Thank you so much. I am overwhelmed. I've waited 31 years for this moment."
TV Guide has reported that ABC has been trying to woo her back for a permanent return.
Genie married actor/director Jonathan Frakes on May 28, 1988. They met while filming Bare Essence and started dating during filming of North and South. The couple has two children, Jameson Ivor Frakes and Elizabeth Francis Frakes. The Frakes family lives in Maine, where Genie operates a cottage furnishings and home accessories store, The Cherished Home.
