Breaking News
Michael Easton Exits General Hospital
UPDATED: Early Wednesday morning, Michael Easton revealed that he has already taped his final scenes as Hamilton Finn on General Hospital.
The popular actor, who arrived at GH after his enduring run as John McBain on One Life to Live, took to his Instagram and announced his departure from the ABC daytime drama series, following weeks of rumors that he was out at the show. Reportedly, Easton’s final airdate is Thursday, June 27th and the video Easton posted was pre-taped awhile ago.
Standing outside the entrance to the set of General Hospital in what seems to be the wee hours of the morning, Easton shared the following message to his fans: “I’ve always been partial to the Irish Wish goodbye. That’s where you leave the party without actually telling anyone you’re gone. But I thought you all deserved better.”
Photo: MEastonIG
Easton then expressed, “So, I just wanna let you know, I just filmed my final scenes here at General Hospital. I’ve loved every minute that I’ve been here. I want to thank the entire cast and crew for allowing me to share their stage this past 10 years. Most importantly, I wanna thank all of you for the kindness and love you shown me and my family. I won’t ever forget you.”
In an emotional closing, Michael ended his video message, with, “As I walk out here for the last time, and with apologies to the great Lou Gehrig, I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Ironically, the former New York Yankees baseball star in Easton’s reference, died of ALS (also known as “Lou Gehrig disease”), which was part of the storyline Michael recently played out on-screen with Finn’s dying father, Gregory, who had the same disease.
Photo: ABC
Michael punctuated his thoughts within the Instagram post with one final goodbye, “Thank you for your kindness. My heart is filled with love and gratitude.”
Currently in story, Finn has lost his sobriety after seven years, and is in the midst of a serious downfall after his father, Gregory passed away and his daughter, Violet (Jophielle Love) has been taken out of his home and has been served a restraining order to not come near her. How will Easton depart GH? Is Finn exiting the Port Charles canvas to get the help he needs?
Clearly, this marks the end of the line for Finn and Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) as they just had it out over his drinking, and with yesterday’s announced return of Jonathan Jackson (Lucky) to GH this summer.
Photo: ABC
Easton’s GH journey started when he took Llanview’s McBain to Port Charles after One Life was canceled. He debuted on the long-running soap in March 13, 2012. However, due to the legal disputes with ownership of the characters from One Life to Live, between ABC and Prospect Park, he had to leave the series. Michael’s last episode as McBain was in March of 2013. Next, General Hospital brought him back as a new character, Silas Clay, in May of 2013. Two years later in 2015, Silas was killed-off. Easton made one more GH run, this time as Dr. Hamilton Finn which he had been playing since the spring of 2016.
Throughout Easton’s time on General Hospital, he has earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Daytime Drama Series back in 2018. Given his recent performances, many suspect that Michael might close his time on GH with another Emmy nomination in 2025.
You can watch Easton’s emotional goodbye below.
Now let us know, what are your thoughts on Michael Easton’s exit from GH? Sad to see him go? How do you think the show will write-off Finn? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
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I’m sad. To be fair to Michael, the writers screwed him over. Welcome back to Lucky, though.
While ME is a good actor, Finn was not the most exciting character. I think this is a good move. I hope Violet sticks around. She’s a cute kid.
I am so sorry to hear this. Michael Easton is a superb actor and has been doing an excellent job as Finn on the tragic downward spiral after the death of this father. And now having lost custody of his beloved daughter, it’s just breaking my heart. I hope they are sending Finn off to rehab and that he will return when he’s sober again. Little Violet adores her father and I hope they can be reunited. Beside, Michael Easton is too good an actor to lose permanently. I’ve enjoyed him since his vampire days.
Have a nice, restful vacation Michael and hurry back to work soon.
“Superb”? C’mon now. It’s not “bashing” it to say it; he’s passable at best.
God forbid someone else has a different opinion.
I’m sorry but he is way more than passable! He played 3 different characters on the show with very little space between each one and did it seamlessly! That’s way better than passable!!
If that were true he wouldn’t have won an emmy! Bye-bye now
Finn had potential, but he was mostly a milk toast character.
The term you’re looking for is milquetoast. Peculiar spelling, I know.
Oh right.
You are really messed up bud. Potential, to me, means a possibility to do better and I feel like he’s done a lot better than most already. And the second insult of calling him a Milquetoast character, really pisses me off, but maybe these two characteristics are something you are really familiar with. As we used to say as kids, insultingceach other, ” takes one to know one”.
I agree he’s an amazing actor and anyone else playing Finn would have had a tough time making him worth watching but I don’t think he’s to blame for that either. They just didn’t make him very exciting and pairing him with Elizabeth did not help lol. She kinda quiet and not terribly exciting either but when she was with Franco it worked, they balanced each other.(I’m still not over Franco lol) When he eas with Alexis or Anna he was a lot more fun.
You are right when you said Franco and Liz were good together. I too loved Franco and felt they ruined him in those other parts, after they killed him off in that terrible way.
Read his wiki page & you won’t miss him so much!
Hi Violet; just pointing out that he’s talking about “Finn” not Michael Easton. People don’t have to like characters, and insulting characters is not insulting the actor.
Personally, I love Michael Easton and didn’t think Finn was as compelling a character as he could have been. I thought he was too silly when he first came on with “Roxy,” and I was pissed that he never really had his own story. First they had him with Hayden, then Alexis, then Anna, then Liz, and somehow it was always about THEIR story; not his. I couldn’t stand how they wrote Liz and Finn as a couple; she spent the majority of the time pushing him away and lashing out at him for “crossing her boundaries while he stared at her with stars in his eyes, taking whatever she dished out. I’d rather they had made him a more central character with one romance that lasted; I actually liked him with Alexis the best. I hate that they let him go; he was so good as the brokenhearted son full of despair and regret, spiraling down. He finally got a chance to play out Finn’s personal trauma and it was only to usher him off the show…
I really like Michael. Finn, I wasn’t so wild about. The character was often written like watching paint dry. Once in a while they threw something to Michael that allowed Finn to shine and showed Michael’s acting chops. The last month or so was definitely a testament to that.
I’ll miss seeing Michael on screen and wish him well in his future endeavors.
Maybe the OLTL characters will come back to PC some day? OH well, one can wish.
A classy message from an actor well regarded by his peers.
By keeping Violet in PC, they’ve left the door open for a possible return down the road. As the show loses another medical professional character (in addition to Bobbie, Austin, Ephiphany, Britt) there’s plenty of room for another doctor.
Over his 12 years on the show, John McBain had a lot of potential (including a pairing with Sam). The Prospect Park situation actually saved his OLTL legacy as we’d never need to see John leave Natalie for good.
Other than his scenes with Ava, Silas was a bore. That character’s lasting legacy was fathering 3!!! daughters – all of whom were paired with Michael at one point (side note: Michael is just like his mother who wound up paired with all 3 of Alan’s sons – ugh!).
Finn had some moments over the past 8 years. The pairing with Hayden worked. He and Alexis had plenty of chemistry while his friendship with Tracy was always admirable. The family dynamic with his father, brother and daughter was endearing. Not so his relationship runs with either Anna or Elizabeth.
Best of luck to Easton. Doubt this is the last we’ll see of him in daytime.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised if his old pal ReRon invites him to come back to Days of Our Lives, which is where he did his first daytime gig as “Tanner Scofield” in the early 1990s.
Tanner wasn’t very significant in the history of Salem, but then neither was Harris Michaels, and they managed to bring him back, when Steve Burton needed a gig.
Real question here is…. what ever happened to Finn’s lizard??
Roxy, the lizard, is hanging out in the vortex with Liesl, Taggert, Brad, Phyllis and the moss from Carly’s kitchen.
Another posting that didn’t age well. That darn moss bowl was prominently featured in Thursday’s opening scene. Mark Teschner did a good job on the recast
Finn’s lizard was aged and is looking for other soap opera gigs.
Mike is a nice guy. I never cared for any the characters he played. But, his last work was his best work. He and Gregory Harrison did some good scenes together. He should head over to Y&R and play a bad guy. Switch it up. He has been vanilla for too many years!
I’d love to see him go to Y&R! Pair him up again with Michelle Stafford – Phyllis needs a new man.
That would be great
If that was to happen, I think I’d have to quit watching . I’ve watched her ruin too many lives, but she always gets a reprieve somehow. This woman is death and disaster to all she touches.8
I do wonder if after a few months break we will get John McBain back.I kind of doubt it right now since Jonathan, Jackson and Steve Burton have both been brought back and they probably get a pretty good salary and some money had to be freed up I bet to pay these two. So we may not see mcbain anytime soon
Nope, not sad. Not sad at all.
I don’t understand why he had to leave.. He’s a terrific actor and deserved better than this.. Shame on you General Hospital
Hope to see you as John McBain on OLTL V3
I’m having high hopes that Michael will be back as John McBain. ABC won the rights back to those characters, let’s see some of our old favorites from OLTL and AMC.
Hey James
Here’s one time I’m going to disagree with you. GH already has plenty of characters in law enforcement. The PCPD has Anna, Mac, Dante, Chase, Dex and the occasionally seen Detective Bennett. Throw in FBI Agent (Jagger) John Cates -although he soon may be departing, former police commissioner Jordan and DA Robert with ADA Molly. And this is all before Former Detective Lucky Spencer returns in the upcoming months.
We desperately need more doctors and nurses.
Bringing them on as their OLTL characters was the first mistake. And it would have been so regardless of the legal red tape from the Prospect Park failed streaming deal.
Actors taking roles on different soaps is a normal thing. Happens all the time. Some are better received by the fans than others, for any number of reasons. But asking the loyal GH fan base to accept characters from another show, to have those characters suddenly jump to the front of the line, and to be treated like everybody knew who they are and they were supposed to be there, well that’s asking a whole HELL of a lot.
Maybe the One Life To Live fans didn’t see the difference, as they knew those characters. But GH fans who didn’t have any investment in those other shows just saw it as an invasion and a disruption. Particularly when they were written to be immediately divisive to both Sonny & Carly and Jason & Sam. Those two couples always have their ups & downs anyway, but Jason & Sam really never recovered from what was done to them in 2012.
Now if Roger Howarth had come on as Austin the first time, a doctor connected to the Quartermaine family, without the baggage of Todd or Frodd attached to him, I think he could have been a successful character. And yeah.. never go down the road of the “Pawtuck mafia” which was what amounted to the character’s final downfall.
As far as Michael Easton goes, Silas and Finn might as well have been the same character, but they probably should have brought him on as Finn, since Silas had connections to the dumb vampire dragonshit from the Port Charles spinoff. And they used Silas to invent Nina, who was also never really necessary… long story short now you have a character who was around for about one year but somehow ended up with three kids. Finn was actually a decent character until he recently crawled into a bottle and lost his mind.
What are they doing? First Roger then Michael, two of their best actors. Writing him off this way does not make any sense. How will they explain when he does not come back in three months?
Well, since one deadbeat dad (Lucky) is returning, Finn could take his place at the table with Frisco Jones, Ric Lansing and Jeff Webber.
Think you forgot someone.
Jeff might not want Finn sitting at his table, considering that dumb piece of backstory they wrote in with the Jeff recast a few months back. That whole business with Jeff banging Finn’s wife, which caused teenage Liz to throw her down the stairs, and she needed blood transfusions, got bad blood in the process which eventually killed her with that rare disease nobody ever heard of.
Miracles do happen, especially in soaps, maybe he will return, we can only hope.
Great actor, horrible material that Michael had to deliver, especially the past few years.
Wishing Mr. Easton continued success moving forward.
I’m sad. I’ve been watching ME since John McBain’s debut in Llanview, and when OLTL ended I was devastated only to have him move over to PC. I never thought I’d see him as anyone other than McBain, but Michael is so good he made me love Finn too.
I was in tears watching Finn leave today for rehab. I had no idea that Michael Easton was leaving but after today’s episode, I wondered, so I came online and searched. I’m really upset over it & as much as I will be happy to see Lucky come home, I hope Easton’s exit was not a trade off. I’ve been watching GH SINCE 1974!
Michael Easton is an amazing actor and I’ve really enjoyed watching him grow as a person and his bonds with his dad, brother and daughter. I wish they would have kept him, an amazing actor, and that they would have gotten rid of Elizabeth, a terrible character and actress.
Breaking News
Jacob Martinez is ‘Days of Our Lives’ New Javi Hernandez Replacing Al Calderon in the Role
Finally! The casting has been revealed as to just who would be Al Calderon’s successor in the role of Days of our Lives, Javi Hernandez. On Friday, April 30, the long-running soap opera revealed Jacob Martinez is taking on the part and he will first be seen this coming June 30th and then on all-new episodes streaming on Peacock.
As previously reported, the popular Calderon exited the soap opera last year to join the cast of the NBC primetime medical drama, Brilliant Minds as nurse Nico Silva, who in May will air the remainder of their second season. The series has been on the bubble for renewal by the network. His last episodes as Javi will also air this May on DAYS.
Since DAYS tapes ten months ahead of streaming, Martinez has been secretly ensconced in all the drama in Salem for quite some time. When viewers see the new Javi in story, we should learn what will happen in Javi’s relationship with Leo Stark played by Emmy winner, Greg Rikaart, plus his continued relationship with his relatives in the Hernandez clan. Currently, when Javi returned to Salem after taking care of his ailing father, and after the bust-up of his marriage to Leo thanks to Dimitri (Peter Porte), he claimed he had moved on with someone else while he was away from Salem.
Photo: JPI
Like Calderon before him, Martinez is a multi-talented actor and singer. Jacob’s resume is impressive having appeared in the musical In Pieces: The Musical at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater and he was hand-picked by Joey Contreras to play the role of Grey. Other credits include: the short film, Memory Swim and the play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage.
Martinez hails from Norfolk, Nebraska and appeared when he was very young at the Johnny Carson Theatre, and as DAYS fans know, Jacob is now working at the Days of our Lives studios, right where the “Tonight Show” is filled. In addition, Jacob Martinez is a graduate of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).
Taking to his Instagram on Thursday, April 30 once the news of his casting was revealed, Martinez, expressed, “Way too many people to thank in one post, so I’ll just say THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART to each and every person who continues to pour into me and encourage me to chase my dreams. I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am. I already feel beyond blessed, supported, and loved. See you all in Salem ⏳”
Jacob Martinez appeared on Friday on the Days of our Lives Instagram account announcing his casting. You can check it out below. Deadline was the first to report the casting switch.
So, excited to learn who is the new Javi Hernandez? Please welcome Jacob Martinez to the role and be on the lookout for his debut on June 30. Comment below.
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This week starts with heartbreaking news. Patrick Muldoon, best known for his roles as the original Austin Reed on Days of Our Lives and later as Richard Hart on Melrose Place, died on Sunday, April 19, at the age of 57. Reports indicate his death was sudden following a heart attack.
Muldoon’s sister, Shana Muldoon-Zappa, told TMZ on Monday more details on her brother’s death, “Patrick went to take a shower Sunday morning after drinking coffee with his girlfriend in their Beverly Hills home. His girlfriend decided to check on him after he was taking too long and found him unconscious on the bathroom floor?” Shana added that paramedics rushed over and tried to revive Patrick, but there was nothing anyone could do.
Soap fans first saw Muldoon as Kate’s (Lauren Koslow) son on DAYS back in 1992, where he quickly became a fan favorite during the on-screen love story between Austin and Carrie Brady (Christie Clarke). Patrick left the series in 1995. He later made comeback for appearances in 2011 and 2012.
Photo: JPI
On Melrose Place, he played bad buy Richard Hart from 1995-1996. Patrick launched his acting career while in college landing the role of Matt in the 1990 sitcom Who’s The Boss? alongside the likes of Judith Light (ex-Karen, OLTL) and Tony Danza. Following his graduation, Patrick nabbed a recurring role as Jeffrey Hunter in Saved By The Bell by 1991.
Throughout his decades long career, Muldoon also starred in several motion and TV series including his leading roile in Starship Troopers (1997). He also had parts in Deadlock (2021), Vanquish (2021), Dakota (2022), Marlowe (2022), and Murder At Hollow Creek (2023).
Photo: JPI
Not only was Patrick an actors, but a producer and a musician and singer. He often made appearances and put out music with his band, The Sleeping Masses. Muldoon was the band’s lead singer and guitar player. Patrick was also a producer of TV and film projects.
At the time of his death, Patrick was also an executive producer on a the movie “Kockroach,” which is currently in production.
Taking to his Instagram, just a few days before his death, Muldoon expressed,“So excited to be a part of this amazing project KOCKROACH directed by Matt Ross starring Chris Hemsworth, Taron Edgerton, Zazzie Beetz And Alec Baldwin. Filming now in Australia,” he captioned his post.
Sadly, on April 24, Muldoon can be seen in his 2025 film Dirty Hands also festuring Denise Richards (ex-B&B, RHOBH), which will be released on digital streaming platforms on VOD.
Muldoon is survived by his partner, Miriam Rothbart; parents, Deanna and Patrick Muldoon Sr.; his sister and brother-in-law, Shana and Ahmet Zappa; and their children, Muldoon’s beloved niece Halo and nephew Arrow Zappa.
Share your remembrances and condolences on the loss of Patrick Muldoon via the comment section, which is followed below by the trailer Dirty Hands due out later this week on digital platforms.
All My Children and Hallmark alum, Jonathan Bennett has been cast in the newly-created role on General Hospital as Joe Fitzpatrick.
Look for Bennett to make his debut on the ABC soap opera next month in May. Bennett is very familiar to daytime fans for his work as JR Chandler on All My Children from 2000-2001. Later, he landed the part of Aaron Samuels in the motion picture, Mean Girls in 2004 starring Lindsay Lohan, which would become his breakout role.
Jonathan would go on to star in seven Hallmark Channel movies and then hosting and producing the network’s reality competition show Finding Mr. Christmas, Bennett has also appeared as a contestant on Season 19 of Dancing with the Stars, plus Celebrity Big Brother in 2019, and he starred on Broadway in Spamalot.
Courtesy/ABC
Frank Valentini, the executive producer of General Hospital shared to Deadline who first reported the casting news, “We’re so excited to have Jonathan joining our cast. He’s a tremendous talent and will be a fantastic addition to ‘GH.’
After the news broke, Bennett took to his Instagram and shared, “There’s a new guy in town…” Meanwhile, the official General Hospital account shared a pic and expressed, “He’s already tired of us telling him his hair looks sexy pushed back. Welcome to the family, Jonathan Bennett.
Bennett is married to Jaymes Vaughan. Back in 2022, they became the first gay couple to appear on the cover of the wedding magazine, The Knot.
So, what do you think of the casting of Jonathan as Joe Fitzpatrick? Is he the new man for Lucas? Share your thoughts via the comment section.
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