General Hospital Casts All My Children Vet as Blaze’s Mother (Exclusive)
Another Pine Valley mainstay is making their way to Port Charles.
All My Children vet Eva LaRue — who played neurologist Dr. Maria Santos Grey on the now-defunct ABC soap off and on over the course of 18 years — is joining General Hospital as Blaze’s (Jacqueline Grace Lopez) mother, TVLine has learned exclusively.
LaRue’s character, Natalia Rogers-Ramirez, will make her first appearance on Feb. 26 (get an exclusive first look at her debut below).
Natalia arrives at a critical time in her singer-daughter’s life: Blaze is in the early stages of a romance with Kristina (played by Daytime Emmy winner Kate Mansi). It’s been previously established that one of the reasons Blaze has kept her sexual orientation under wraps is because she fears her coming out could have negative career implications. She also hinted that there could be blowback from her family.
LaRue, whose TV credits also include a series regular role on CSI: Miami as well as a stint on The Young and The Restless, will reunite with several of her former AMC co-stars on GH, most notably Cameron Mathison and Michael E. Knight.
LaRue’s casting comes as GH is navigating a major change behind the scenes. Last month it was announced that head writers Chris Van Etten and Dan O’Connor had stepped down, replaced by current GH script editor Elizabeth Korte and celebrated soap vet Patrick Mulcahey (GH, Santa Barbara, Guiding Light). The new material from Team Korte/Mulcahey will begin airing in mid-to-late March.
They should have brought her back as Maria. The hospital needs more doctors
Will this just be a one-two day thing like Blair Kramer? Lots of build up to that & then she was gone. Hope this isn’t the same deal. However, do we really need more characters on the GH canvas? We have more than enough right now.
Eva is not joining in a full time capacity, it’s an arc. And Patrick Mulcahey is the lead HW, Korte is 2nd in command.
Too bad they couldn’t have Blaze turn out to be Maddie Grey and thus Maria and Edmund’s daughter.
Ohh this would have been great! I really enjoy Blaze and I’m digging the building relationship with Kristina, it would have been great if she would have also been an AMC legacy character. But I’m definitely curious which way they’re gonna go here given the not very subtle hints of a homophobic family.
Eva won a Daytime Emmy in 2020 for Outstanding Guest Perfomer in a Drama Series when she was on The Young and the Restless. I can’t wait to see her on GH.
I thought Blaze was Skye Chandler lol.
I’m guessing you meant Skye’s daughter with Lorenzo Alcazar, Lila Rae?
Writer’s should have brought back Maddie Grey. And used Blaze as a stage name
Maybe she is the doctor that discovers that Gregory does not have ALS.
I don’t care who plays the doctor that discovers this….as long as someone does! Gregory is a great character with chemistry with both Alexis and Tracy and tons of storyline potential……
Yes please someone needs to reevaluate Gregory
Agreed. I’d love if Gregory was misidagnosed, even though Gregory Harrison’s acting has been so good with the ALS storyline. I love Gregory’s character. His chemistry with Alexis and Tracy is great. He has a different kind of chemistry with each one, but they’re equally great.
I hope she is as good as she was in All My Children. Also, I hope she isn’t one of those woman who cannot understand the new world.
You can’t not have drama with characters, that’s why it’s a soap. Expect a fiery personality and conflict galore when she appears! If you want to just see happy characters loving each other, this isn’t really the genre for that.
Why not just have brought her on as Maria since AMC is defunct and just transfer the character?
Because, they can’t. When AMC and OLTL were first cancelled, GH did exactly that. Then, they lost those characters when the Prospect Park snafu happened. GH had to create completely new characters for the actors who had come over from AMC and OLTL.
That’s how Michael Easton ended up as Finn, after Silas was killed off; Roger Howarth was recast as Franco after they had to get rid of Todd Manning; and then eventually he became Austin after Franco’s storyline ran its course. Even though the Prospect Park reboots on streaming failed, I don’t think they can use the AMC and OLTL characters ever again. Eva La Rue HAS to play a new character. She can’t play Maria on GH.
GH originally just transferred John McBain from OLTL and paired him up with Sam; as well as Todd Manning. They lost the rights to those characters when Prospect Park rebooted both AMC and OLTL online. That’s why John was killed off, replaced by Silas, who was then also killed off. It’s why Todd disappeared, replaced by a recast Franco, who was then replaced by Austin after Franco’s (an original GH character) storyline simply ran its course, because Roger wanted to play a new character.
The Prospect Park reboots failed, but those characters were never released to GH, especially since just a couple of years ago Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos had a primetime AMC reboot in the works – Pine Valley. GH will never be able to use AMC or OLTL characters.
Explain why Walt Wiley (Jackson Montgomery) is on GH?
Also, Kassie DePaiva who played Blair Cramer was on GH in 2023 and Hillary B. Smith played Nora back in 2017 and 2019.
They could have brought her character as a short cameo stint.
Did Patrick Mulcahey write for her during her far-too-short stint on Santa Barbara?
Congratulations to the new Writers🏆🏆Love General Hospital💜loved and miss The Guiding Light♥️😢
Any time I hear Eva’s AMC character Maria mentioned, I think of the way Erica Kane roasted her: “Saint Maria of Wildwind, tending to the sick in her push-up bra…..” A classic line.
Will be fun to see Eva again.
Please brush up on GH history. It is so annoying when history is rewritten. For instance Jagger is blue eyed and blond haired
Love Eva, no matter who she plays and how long her arc is. I think the casting here is great. She looks like she could be Blaze’s mother. Now that GH has finally gotten rid of Chris Etten and Dan O’Connor (long time coming, they were horrible), maybe the writing will get better, actually make sense and get to good soap writing.