After playing the daughter of a mob boss on “General Hospital” for more than two decades, Kelly Monaco is reportedly leaving the soap opera.
The Philadelphia native will make her final appearance in the fictional Port Charles this fall, Variety reported. Monaco has been a staple of the “General Hospital” cast since her first role as Sam McCall in 2003.
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Exact details of Monaco’s exit are being kept under wraps, but Soap Opera Network – which broke the news – wrote that sources said Sam was being killed off and Monaco was “blindsided” when she learned she was leaving the show. The news also shocked fans, who took to social media to share their disappointment at her early exit and campaigned for her return.
Monaco, 48, was born and raised in Philadelphia. According to an Instagram post, she attended the now-closed St. Joachim Catholic School in North Philadelphia. Her family moved to the Poconos before she started junior high school, and she attended Pocono Mountain High School before studying at Northampton Community College for two years.
Christine Bartolucci/ABC
Kelly Monaco is reportedly leaving “General Hospital” after 21 years on the ABC soap opera. Above, she plays Sam McCall in an episode that aired last year.
Monaco moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s to pursue a career in the entertainment industry and landed her first television role in 1997 on “Baywatch,” playing a young lifeguard – drawing on real-life experiences from her time as a lifeguard at Mount Airy Lodge in Mount Pocono. She also modeled for Playboy and landed minor roles in films such as “BASEketball” (1998), “Idle Hands” (1999) and “Mumford” (1999). In 2000, she joined the “General Hospital” franchise in the spinoff series “Port Charles,” playing the character Livvie Locke until 2003.
In 2003, Monaco was introduced on “General Hospital” as Sam, the daughter of a mob boss who was raised by her adoptive father to be a con artist. She appeared in over 2,200 episodes of “General Hospital,” which airs weekdays on ABC, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 2006. Her character’s more recent storylines involve trying to win back her former fiancé and dealing with the shocking news that her arch-enemy is her biological mother. She was also the first celebrity to win “Dancing with the Stars” during its premiere season in 2005.
General Hospital – which centers on the twisted, unbelievable drama surrounding the residents of Port Charles in upstate New York – is the longest-running soap opera, having first aired in 1963. Monaco’s exit comes at a time of change for the series, with head writer Patrick Mulcahey leaving the series and former head writer Chris Van Etten returning to take his place. Fans of Sam can still hold out some hope, however, as goodbyes to Port Charles are never necessarily final – for example, Lucky Spencer (Jonathan Jackson) returned to town this summer after nearly a decade away from the soap.
