{"id":757,"date":"2025-09-25T09:41:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/?p=757"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:41:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:41:35","slug":"general-hospital-grieves-for-monica-after-leslie-charlesons-death-star-jane-elliot-says-it-felt-like-i-had-to-mourn-her-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/?p=757","title":{"rendered":"General Hospital\u2019 Grieves for Monica After Leslie Charleson\u2019s Death; Star Jane Elliot Says, \u2018It Felt Like I Had to Mourn Her Twice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There isn\u2019t a dry eye in All Saints Chapel on Thursday and Friday\u2019s \u201cGeneral Hospital<\/a>\u201d episodes, as family, friends and colleagues gather to honor Dr. Monica Quartermaine, who passed away peacefully in her sleep last week. The emotion on screen was real \u2014 Leslie Charleson<\/a>, who\u2019d brought Monica to life since 1977, died in January at 79, making these scenes a farewell to both the character and the actress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was very, very difficult to play her alive when she had already passed in real life. It extended the mourning because we had to keep her alive when she wasn\u2019t,\u201d says Jane Elliot<\/a>, who plays Tracy Quartermaine, Monica\u2019s sister-in-law. \u201cI had to mourn her death twice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get out the tissues \u2014 you\u2019re going to need them. The memorial service begins quietly. Jason (Steve Burton), who was raised by Monica, waits in the chapel to greet mourners, his grief written on his face. Looking at Monica\u2019s photo, his eyes fill with tears, and he comes to realize that living at the mansion this past year brought him and Monica closer, a time he will always cherish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSteve Burton (Jason) was very close with her as well,\u201d Elliot says of his relationship with Charleson, his TV mom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the Quartermaine mansion \u2014 as seen in the exclusive video \u2014 Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton) tells Chase (Josh Swickard) she understands her grandmother not wanting to show her grief in public, says everyone has to mourn in their own way. Ned (Wally Kurth) flashes back to his own complicated history with Monica and admits to Olivia (Lisa LoCicero) that he still feels her presence everywhere in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly, the mourners arrive at the church, each remembering how Monica shaped their lives. Tracy looks at the photo of Monica and struggles with her emotions. She is deeply touched when she learns Jason\u2019s part in honoring the woman he called his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the service begins, all eyes turn to Tracy, worried she\u2019ll sneak off, unable to deal with the reality of Monica\u2019s death. Will Tracy be able to put on a brave face and share her deep emotions by speaking at Monica\u2019s service?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s adamant she\u2019s not going to do it, but there are a lot of people who really want her to do it,\u201d Elliot says. \u201cThe question is, will someone get her to change her mind?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Quartermaine family on ABC\u2019s \u201cGeneral Hospital\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeslie left two voids in my life,\u201d Elliot says. \u201cShe left a void as an acting partner and a friend. Leslie and I knew each other for 60 years. We met in 1965. I was 18 and she was 20, and she was dating a boy in a play that I was in in New York City. She would come to the theater on Saturdays and hang out in my dressing room and wait for him to be done so that they could go out to dinner between shows. We would sit and gab, and she\u2019d watch me put on my makeup. We had a lot of shared experience and stuff to talk about. And then we lost touch. And in 1978 I got hired to play Tracy [on \u2018GH\u2019] only to discover that I was to play her sister-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elliot and Charleson became very good friends off the set, even as their \u201cGH\u201d characters were constantly bickering. They took trips together, had birthday parties for each other, and when Elliot got married, Charleson gave her a wedding shower. \u201cShe was an integral part of my life\u2026It\u2019s hard enough to mourn somebody\u2019s death once, but then to do it again. One was obviously the person, and the other was the character, but at a certain point they blended. You know, Monica was Leslie, and Leslie was Monica. I had shared experience with Monica, and I had shared experience with Leslie, so she left me twice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Stuart Damon (Alan), Leslie Charleson<\/a> (Monica), Jane Elliot (Tracy) and Jed Allan (Edward).\u00a92004 American Broadcasting Com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Monica\u2019s death is hitting Tracy especially hard. When Tracy was introduced onto the show, her brother Alan was already married to Monica, who Tracy thought was beneath him in stature and in place in society. She mocked and diminished her for years. \u201cAnd then everybody [in Tracy\u2019s life] died \u2014 Alan died, Lila died. Edward died. And Monica and Tracy were the last two standing,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMonica had been the head of the hospital, and Monica had been a successful surgeon. Monica was on the board. And Tracy started to see her as an equal. Tracy had evolved over the years and was a more substantive human being and had gone through the heartbreak of losing Luke twice, and she developed a fuller personality. Because of that, she could see Monica\u2019s weight and respected her for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, Tracy stands alone. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge loss for her. All of her contemporaries are gone. Her mother, her father, her brother, Luke, Gregory,\u201d Elliot says. \u201cI mean, Monica was it. They were the last two standing hand in hand, side by side. So losing her was like losing an arm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Laura (Genie Francis) shares loving thoughts at Monica\u2019s memorial service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There isn\u2019t a dry eye in All Saints Chapel on Thursday and Friday\u2019s \u201cGeneral Hospital\u201d episodes, as family, friends and colleagues gather to honor Dr. Monica Quartermaine, who passed away … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifefe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}