Denise Alexander obit

Denise Alexander, General Hospital Star, Dies at 85

Alexander played Lesley Webber on the daytime soap opera from 1973 to 1984 and on and off in the following decades 

She was not on the list.

Denise Alexander has died at the age of 85. The actress was best known for her role as Lesley Webber on General Hospital. Lesley was the mother of Genie Francis Laura.

The actress died on Wednesday, March 5, per Variety and Soap Opera Digest. PEOPLE reached out to ABC for further comment.

General Hospital showrunner Frank Valentini announced her death on Friday, May 9, via X. "I am so very sorry to hear of Denise Alexander’s passing. She broke barriers on-screen and off, portraying Dr. Lesley Webber - one of the first female doctors on Daytime Television - for nearly five decades," he wrote.

He continued, "It meant so much to have her reprise her role in recent years and I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with her. On behalf of the entire General Hospital family, I extend my heartfelt sympathies to her family, friends, and longtime fans. May she rest in peace."

Alexander was born in New York City in 1939. She began working as an actress on the radio at the age of 6. “There was television, there was radio, I did theater, I did everything there was to do, and it seemed natural,” she told We Love Soaps in 2010. “Now when I look back, I think, ‘How lucky was I?’ — because a lot of people didn't have those experiences.”

Her father, who worked as an agent, moved the family to Los Angeles, and she continued to work on TV and radio; The Press Courier wrote in 1968 that she had already made 5,000 radio and 500 TV appearances. Her film debut came in 1956’s Crime in the Streets, starring John Cassavetes.

On the radio, she appeared on several soaps, but her first on-screen soap opera role came in 1960’s The Clear Horizon, playing one of the astronauts’ daughters. She told We Love Soaps, “There was an older teenager, and I played the younger teenager in the family, just discovering boys and getting into trouble.” The show was canceled in 1962.

Four years later in 1966, she joined Days of Our Lives. She knew the show’s writers, Ted Corday and Betty Corday. They offered her a part without an audition in 1965, before the show premiered. “When you're an actor and you get a call and don't have to audition, it's like a high point in your life, and you're going to remember that,” she told We Love Soaps. She turned them down, as she wanted to finish her studies at UCLA.

In 1966, they called again with an offer to play Susan Hunter Martin. She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep acting, but she trusted them. “I thought I’d give it a try,” she told the Schenectady Gazette in 1971 of the role on Days. “Now I’m thankful I did.”

She said working on a soap opera removed “the barriers of fear, frustration and insecurity you so often” experience on sets where actors don’t know where their next job will come from. “No one is worried about not having a place to work the next day,” she explained.

She stayed with the show until 1973, when she and the network fought over her contract. ABC executives heard about the issue and offered her a massive contract for General Hospital, hoping her star power could help save the show. She took it, and they wrote her in as a new character, originally named Lesley Williams, who was later revealed to be the mother of a then-teenage Genie Francis' Laura.

Alexander’s performance as Lesley was a hit, and the show ultimately put her in a love triangle with Chris Robinson’s Rick Webber and Leslie Charleson’s Monica Quartermaine. “When it was Chris and me, Rick and Lesley were the Luke and Laura of their day,” Alexander told We Love Soaps, referencing the show’s massive super couple. “General Hospital went to number one for the first time during the Rick and Lesley and Monica triangle storyline.” In 1976, Alexander received a Daytime Emmy nomination for her work.

Her fans were passionate. “It's not necessarily that soap opera breeds bigger stardom than movies do," she told The Hour in 1977. "It's just that the public feels closer to afternoon stars than to the movie types. After all, we are with them daily, and they feel they know us. You'd be surprised how personal my fan mail is — and I don't mean erotic personal. Our lives on the shows supersede their own lives, become part of their daily living."

She stayed with GH until 1984, leaving because of another contract dispute. The series controversially killed her off; The New York Times reported that about 75 fans picketed the studio in protest. 

Alexander jumped to Another World, playing Mary McKinnon, one of the show’s matriarchs. But she didn’t like commuting from Los Angeles to New York, where the show filmed. She left the series in 1989.

Alexander returned to GH in 1996 as Lesley was brought back from the dead. “I was sad when I left the show,” she told We Love Soaps. “When you have played a character that long and had fun with it, you can feel the fan's sorrow. I missed the character, and it's a fun thing for me she came back to life. It's a character I know, and there's still a few people I know there.”

She appeared on GH on a recurring basis until 2009. She returned in 2013 for the show’s 50th anniversary, and in April 2019, she returned to celebrate its 59th anniversary. She returned once more in early 2021. Alexander also appeared on the soap opera Sunset Beach from 1997 to 1998.

In addition to her acting, Alexander was an accomplished photographer. Talking to The Pittsburgh Press in 1978 about her hobby, she said, "There is a tendency for a lot of actors and actresses to feel like professional lightweights. The attitude may be stupid, but it is a matter of dressing up in your mother's clothes and playing make-believe. Most of us have an urge to do something more grown-up.”

Alexander was married to director and producer, Richard A. Colla, who died in 2021. She worked as a producer on many of his projects.

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