Luke and Laura Spencer

Luke Spencer and Laura Webber are fictional characters on the American soap opera General Hospital. Luke is played by Anthony Geary and Laura was played by Genie Francis. This pairing was credited with defining the term supercouple, and caused other soap operas to copy the successful formula.

Critics of the soap opera genre panned the unlikely pairing, as very few, if any, rape victims fall in love with their rapists. However, the duo became wildly popular in spite of Luke's past misdeed. They wed in 1981 and the episode was the highest-rated hour in soap history. They were married for two decades, and even after their divorce and Laura's subsequent departure from Port Charles, their union is still felt in stories on the serial today.

History

In the beginning, Laura was not paired with Luke, but with Scott Baldwin (played by Kin Shriner). Scott and Laura had continually faced obstacle after obstacle placed in their path by the scheming ex hooker turned nurse Bobbie Spencer, who wanted Scott for herself. Bobbie had re-established contact with her brother Luke in order to help her with her schemes to break up Scott and Laura, which was how the character of Luke Spencer was introduced. However, after Laura was injured in a car accident caused indirectly by one of Bobbie and Luke's schemes, Luke and Bobbie felt guilty and decided to give up their vendetta against the couple. Of course, by this time it was becoming apparent that Luke was beginning to fall for his sister's foe.

In 1979 Scott and Laura married and while Scott was at work and law school, Laura was left at the house, bored. She encouraged Luke, who was now the manager of the Campus Disco, to offer her a job. He did so, and she began to feel more confident about herself. She went on a shopping spree; Scott was not happy when he found out that she had charged $500 over their credit limit. Scott and Laura got into a fight and she left for work. While Laura was working at the Disco, Luke had fallen in love with her. His boss, Frank Smith, who was affiliated with the Mafia, ordered him to execute a "hit" on senatorial candidate Mitch Williams who had crossed Frank Smith by vowing to bring down the Port Charles mafia. Luke didn't want to, but he knew that if he didn't, he would be fired or possibly killed. Luke also knew that if he did perform the hit, then Mitch Williams' security agents would probably kill him as well. Luke was very depressed, and on the night Laura waited at the Disco for Scott to pick her up, Luke became very distraught and vowed to hold her in his arms before he died. On the floor of the Disco, a drunken Luke raped Laura.

Although Laura admitted that she had been raped, she never named Luke as the rapist. Laura stayed with Scott but ended up falling in love with Luke, as well. On Election night, the night that Luke was to assassinate Mitch Williams, Laura saved Luke's life by throwing away the keys to his car, thus preventing Luke from performing the hit. Luke's best friend Roy Di Lucca decided to perform the hit himself (Mitch Williams survived, Roy was presumed dead after Mitch's security agents shot at him, only to "return from the dead" twenty years later). Thus Luke was saved from his predicament, only to fall into another when Frank Smith told Luke he would spare his life if Luke married his daughter, Jennifer.

Despondent over Frank Smith's order that Luke marry his daughter Jennifer, Luke ordered Laura to tell Scott that he raped her. Instead, she wrote Luke a love letter that Scott eventually found on the day that Luke was to marry Jennifer. He pulled Luke out of the ceremony and onto a yacht, beating him up. Luke fell overboard and was presumed to have drowned, but Luke eventually resurfaced and told Laura that they could finally be together, now that Scott knows about their relationship. Commandeering a boat, Luke and Laura escaped from the wedding.

Luke and Laura then set out to put Frank Smith in prison by deciphering the codes in Frank's black book which had details of all his criminal activities. Luke and Laura went on the run from Frank Smith's men, stopping on the way to have some fun dancing at Wyndham's Department Store and falling deeper in love during the process. Eventually Luke and Laura found the evidence they needed to have Frank Smith put away for his mob activities. Celebrating their success, the two made love. However, upon their return to Port Charles, they were met by a bunch of journalists who quizzed the two on their details of their personal relationship. Laura got fed up with the probing questions and finally blurted out that she still considered herself to be "Mrs Scott Baldwin". Luke was heartbroken and immediately rejected Laura. In the months before their summer on the run, Luke had spent months trying to get Laura to admit her love for him. Now the tables were turned as Laura tried for months to get Luke to admit that he loved her.

Eventually, they were brought closer together by Laura's divorce from Scott and yet another compromising position in that Luke and Laura helped save the entire town of Port Charles from a deep freeze, orchestrated by Mikkos Cassadine.

They married on November 16, 1981; the episode was the highest-rated hour in soap history. Laura's former rival for Scott's affections, Bobbie, was none too happy with the marriage but eventually declared an unofficial truce with Laura. The two have since become close friends, although the two have been known to fall out (most recently in 1997 after Bobbie married Laura's former love Stefan Cassadine).

Happiness for Luke and Laura proved to be shortlived, for early in 1982 Laura went missing and was eventually presumed dead. Luke tried desperately to move on with his life and entered into a love affair with Holly Sutton (Emma Samms), but the romance was shortlived and ended when Holly fell in love with Luke's best friend, Robert Scorpio. Increasingly lonely as the second anniversary of his marriage to Laura approached, Luke ran for Mayor of Port Charles, and won. On his Innauguration Day, Luke got the surprise of his life when Laura appeared. Laura revealed that she had been kidnapped by the Cassadines as revenge for Luke thwarting Mikkos' plot to freeze Port Charles. Laura revealed that Stavros, Mikkos's son had fallen in love with her and spared her life in return so that she would marry him. Luke told Laura that none of this mattered and that her marriage to Stavros was invalid because Laura was still married to Luke. Soon afterwards, Stavros arrived in town, and after holding Luke and Laura hostage and attempting to rape Laura, he fell down some stairs to his death (Although he would be revived in cryogenic freeze in 2001). Luke and Laura then settled into their respective roles as mayor and mayoress. However, the free spirited duo soon found the roles stifling, and decided to leave Port Charles in order to see the world.

In 1984, Robert helped Luke when he was accused of murder in Mexico so that Luke would be free to be with Laura. When Luke was finally cleared, he returned to Laura, who announced the joyous news that she was pregnant. With the revelation, Luke and Laura made what seemingly would be their last appearance on General Hospital.

While Luke and Laura were off-screen, the couple had a son, Lucas Lorenzo Spencer, Junior (nicknamed Lucky). Admist much fanfare in both the real world and the fictional realm of Port Charles itself, Luke and Laura returned to Port Charles in 1993, with their son Lucky, played by Jonathan Jackson. The catalyst for their return was that Frank Smith had renewed his old vendetta against the couple. Frank Smith's men found Luke and Laura at the Triple J diner in Canada and attempted to kill them by blowing up their truck, an act which led to the death of one of Luke and Laura's Canadian friends.

Luke and Laura eventually had a daughter, Lesley Lu (Lulu), named for Laura's mother. They had to deal with Frank Smith for several more years, and then, when the character of Frank Smith was killed off, by his daughter Jennifer, then played by Roseanne Barr.

But even though Frank Smith was safely out of their lives for good, Luke and Laura's life did not calm down. In 1995, Laura resented Luke's growing friendship with mobster Sonny Corinthos, and after an enemy of Sonny's attacked her family home, she and Luke separated for a while.

The following year, Laura was accused of murdering Frank Smith's son, Damian. Although she was exonerated, Luke and Laura immediately faced another crisis when their daughter Lesley Lu was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia. Lesley Lu desperately needed a bone marrow transplant, but none of the Spencers, including Laura, Luke, Lucky, and Bobbie were a match. Eventually, Lulu got her transplant from a totally unexpected source. It turned out that when Laura had been held captive and married to Stavros Cassadine, she had had a son by him, Nikolas. Nikolas' bone marrow was a match and the transplant was performed that saved Lulu's life. However, the revelation that Laura had had a son that she never told Luke about was a great shock to the Spencer marriage. Furthermore, Nikolas and his uncle Stefan moved to Port Charles, and acted as a continual reminder of Laura's concealing of the truth. Stefan managed to take advantage of Bobbie's loneliness after her divorce from her husband Tony and turn Bobbie against Luke and Laura for a period of time. Bobbie and Stefan even married, but Laura knew that he only married Bobbie to make Laura jealous.

Luke and Laura soon discovered that back in the year 1984, Stefan had been ordered by his mother Helena to murder Laura's mother to avenge the deaths of Mikkos and Stavros. Stefan had gone against his mother's wishes however and had recused Laura's mother, Leslie from the car accident that had been presumed to be the cause of her death. Lesley was now in a catatonic state and after being reunited by Stefan, Laura and Lesley were presumed dead in an explosion. However it was soon revealed that their deaths had been faked by Luke in order to hide from Helena (and descredit Stefan at the same time). Upon their return in 1997, Luke and Laura were met with unexpected hostility from the citizens of Port Charles, and particularly Bobbie, Nikolas and Stefan.

Stefan decided to drive Laura out of town with the one piece of information that he knew would destroy her marriage to Luke. Stefan reminded Laura that years before, Stefan and Laura had been lovers behind Stavros' back when Stavros was holding her captive, and that Stefan could possibly be Nikolas' biological father. This was enough to get Laura to pack her bags, and she fled to Switzerland, giving the excuse that her mother would get better treatment over there that would help her come out of her Catatonia. She spent the next year in Switzerland, not returning until early 1998.

Early in 1998, Luke and Laura were forced to revisit their past again when Lucky learned of the long ago rape incident at the disco from Nikolas of all people. Luke and Laura were estranged from Lucky for months, as their son's romantic illusions about his parents had been shattered. Lucky didn't know which was worse, the idea of his father raping his mother, or the fact that his mother had lived with her rapist for all of these years. Even though Luke and Laura were eventually reconciled with Lucky, their own relationship was in bad shape. Luke hit the roof when he realised that Laura and Stefan had been lovers and that Stefan was possibly Nikolas' father. As 1998 drew to a close, Luke and Laura separated.

Luke and Laura would be further driven apart by the presumed death of their son Lucky in a fire the following year. Both were devastated, and found comfort in other people. Luke, firstly with Tammy, then with Felicia, Laura with Stefan. However, almost a year after Lucky's "death", Laura broke up with Stefan when she found out that Lucky was still alive and being held captive by Helena, wrongly suspecting Stefan of being involved. Luke and Laura then went searching for their son and eventually found him. However this was not enough to cause Luke and Laura to reconcile. Instead, Laura grew close to her ex-husband, Scott Baldwin, while Luke continued his affair with Felicia.

Then, in 2001, after two decades of being married on the show, the duo made headlines when the writers of the program had Luke and Laura divorce. E! Online reported that Luke said (paraphrased) that it was "like seeing the end of an era." [1] (http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0%2C1%2C8428%2C00.html)

When Genie Francis decided that she wanted to leave the show again in 2002, the plot had a disturbed Laura murdering her stepfather, Rick Webber, in a psychotic episode, shortly before she and Luke were to remarry. She was sent to a mental hospital in Switzerland. When Luke's new love interest, Skye Chandler-Quartermaine (Robin Christopher), was framed for killing a police officer, her lawyer set to prove that it was actually Laura who killed the policeman. Instead, it was Laura's "half-aunt" Heather Webber (Robin Mattson) (she had been married to Rick Webber's half brother Jeff), who tricked them all; Skye's lawyer's case was built around circumstantial evidence that the murderer's hair was blonde, and both women had the same hair color, causing the confusion.

• Main article: supercouple
• See also: General Hospital