What began as a two-day gig turned into the role of a lifetime.
When Tristan Rogers first aired on General Hospital on December 2, 1980, he didn’t know that his life had been changed forever, that he’d still be playing the same part more than four decades later, that his name would become synonymous with his on-screen alter ego’s.
Though it’s likely that the audience may have tipped him off.
The Australian actor, who played Robert Scorpio, Port Charles’ take on James Bond, became popular as soon as he appeared on screen. Viewers of the ABC soap opera had no intention of letting him go. Additionally, he wouldn’t be too quick to let go of himself.
For That’s Awesome in the fall of 2020, he remembered, “The position allowed for the creation of a persona that was fresh and different for daytime television as a sort of intriguing… mysterious type.” The fans strongly identified with me and my character since [Robert] was associated with the wildly popular supercouple Luke and Laura.
So much so that Rogers was constantly recognized and hounded wherever he went. He explained to the website that being a member of such a hugely successful show at the time required giving up privacy and made it nearly impossible for him to carry out something as basic as visiting a store without security. Thank God for a period before social media!
Even though he rushed to add, “I wouldn’t swap a minute of it, I didn’t know that this two-day shoot would evolve into a character that would erupt the way it [did] and one that I would play for decades.
In the past, Rogers has made numerous appearances on primetime television shows and even other soap operas, most notably The Young and the Restless, where he gave Colin Atkinson an enviably charmingly cheeky personality. (That’s him below with Jill, played by leading woman Jess Walton.) But he will always be best known as Robert Scorpio.
Rogers, though, is not sorry he chose to leave General Hospital in 1992. To Soap Opera Digest in 2019, he stated, “I kind of had to break away from it.” “At the time, I was really angry about being on the show… I was genuinely itching to do something else.
So he worked on a bunch of “something else,” including Babylon 5 (seen below), the NASCAR racing thriller Fast Track on Showtime, and animated series like Captain Planet and the Planeteers and Batman Beyond. After several “spectral” visits to General Hospital, Rogers at last brought Robert back to life in 2006.
So today, on the anniversary of our introduction to his iconic character, why not celebrate by looking through the below photo gallery, which reviews his life and many, many loves in Port Charles?
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