General Hospital’s Unbelievable Character Transformations

Published on June 1, 2018. Updated December 2, 2021

Most long-term soap opera characters will change over time; however, some character transformations on daytime dramas can be sudden and really knock fans off their feet. With over 55 years on the air, General Hospital (GH) has had plenty of unbelievable character transformations over its tenure, and below is an overview of the top 12.

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12. Elizabeth Webber

For the most part, Elizabeth Webber is the quintessential soap opera good girl: she’s an amazing partner, mom, nurse, and friend. Still, swerves in her character over the years sometimes have had GH fans divided on what they truly think of her. There was the 2009 affair she had on Lucky (with his brother Nikolas), as well as that time in 2015 that she hid Jake Doe’s real identity from him. Well, everyone thought Doe was Jason Morgan at the time, but that turned out to be a sham.
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11. Lucky Spencer

Speaking of Lucky, he too had an unbelievable transformation back in 2006 when he battled a painkillers addiction. He cheated on Elizabeth with Maxie Jones, who also happened to be the one supplying him with the pills. Lucky changed completely during this storyline, even almost axing Liz at one point (by accident, but still). Thankfully, he turned his life around when he decided to go to rehab.
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10. Tony Jones

Dr. Tony Jones was an all-around decent man and quite the catch in Port Charles during his heyday. However, this was not the case in 1998. Jones would snap during a storyline where he realized that Baby Michael wasn’t his and that his then-girlfriend Carly had cheated on him. He ended up kidnapping the baby and Robin Scorpio, where she got quite sick during the ordeal because she didn’t have access to her HIV medication. Tony would be found ‘not guilty’ during his court proceedings due to temporary insanity; however, Jones never fully recovered from this swerve in his character’s personality, eventually being killed off the show in 2006.

9. Brad Cooper

One minute, Brad Cooper is plotting schemes and switching baby embryos with Britt Westbourne and the next minute he has Lucas Jones falling for him where the two have plans to expand their family. Is Cooper a good guy or bad guy? GH fans can’t help but raise an eyebrow with this character, especially since he blackmailed Hamilton Finn last year during the doctor’s battle with drug addiction.
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8. Kate Howard

What a crazy evolution the Kate Howard role went through from the time she entered Port Chuckles in 2007, to her demise in 2013. Kate was a conservative businesswoman and entrepreneur who happened to also fall for local town mobster Sonny Corinthos. When her mental health issues surfaced years later, Connie Falconeri, one of Kate’s multiple personalities, emerged onto the scene and took over. Connie was crass, had a Bensonhurst accent, and caused chaos on GH and in Sonny’s life. A far cry from the sweet and responsible Kate fans had grown to love.
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7. Ava Jerome

Love can make characters do some crazy things, and ‘crazy’ for Ava Jerome is actually becoming a decent and good human being. Griffin Monroe has undoubtedly changed Ava for the better, where fans saw her more recently help Jason Morgan get back to Port Charles. Can she keep this up? Helping Nelle out with her plan to drive Carly crazy isn’t a good sign; however, here’s hoping that Ava can continue doing good deeds around town and avoid any trouble.

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6. Julian Jerome

The former mob boss has the personality of a roller coaster. One minute he’s doing illegal activities; the next he’s falling in love with Alexis and seems reformed; then Jerome is back to his old mob ways and trying to kill his wife; and more recently, Julian seems on the road to decency and wooing Kim Nero. Can he decide who he really is and move on? He keeps transforming from good guy to public enemy number one, over and over again.
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5. Nikolas Cassadine

For a good long while, Nikolas Cassadine walked the line of decency until something snapped. Was it losing a good influence like Emily Quartermaine? It’s hard to tell, but Nikolas not only killed his own grandmother (mind you, she had it coming), he also hired a hitman to kill his love interest Hayden Barnes, and then went to extreme lengths (along with Elizabeth Webber) to keep Jake Doe’s real identity under wraps a couple of years back.
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4. Sam McCall

What’s been going on with Sam lately? She traded in her PI life for the world of multi-media, chose Drew over Jason without hesitation, and has had some mental health issues this past summer. Sometimes it feels like the Sam McCall character is a completely different person! It’s clear that she and Jason are heading towards a reunion, so perhaps he can help knock some sense into her.
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3. Franco Baldwin

Franco’s childhood storyline as of late has shed a tremendous amount of insight into why he is who he is. Many fans find Franco endearing, some find him annoying, but years ago, everyone was infatuated with the psychotic artist who was obsessed with Jason Morgan. A brain tumor ended up being the reason why Franco was so eccentric and geared towards evil, so once it was removed, Franco became an entirely new (and good) person.
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2. Jason Morgan

Remember when Jason was a clean-cut Quartermaine looking to become a doctor like his dad Alan? That all changed in 1995 when Jason was the victim of a car accident, leaving him with zero memories of the past. He would rebel against the Quartermaines, hook up with mobster Sonny Corinthos, and Jason Morgan was officially born. The rest is history and Jason was completely transformed, never turning back to his richy-rich Quartermaine ways.
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1. Paul Hornsby

In the early 1990s when the Paul Hornsby character first hit Port Charles, he was actually a pretty decent guy. He’d leave town for a bit, re-emerge in 2015, and while he had turned into a scumbag while he was away, no one would have every guessed Hornsby would transform into the lunatic serial killer he became in 2016.
© Howard Wise/jpistudios.com