General Hospital and Days of Our Lives Legend Dead at 85

Man, this one hits hard. Denise Alexander, whose enviable daytime career took her from Days of Our Lives to General Hospital to Another World, has died at 85 years old, Soap Opera Digest reports.

The actress, a native of New York City, relocated to the West Coast when her talent-agent father did so. (He represented such notables as Rebel Without a Cause scene stealer Sal Mineo.) Alexander made her big-screen debut at just 14, in the John Cassavetes film Crime In the Streets.

The future soap legend wasn’t an overnight sensation in daytime; she paid her dues, toiling away on The Clear Horizon before landing her breakout role of Julie’s frenemy Susan Hunter on Days of Our Lives in 1966. Seven years later, Alexander was such a hot commodity that General Hospital moved heaven and earth to entice her to jump ship and move to Port Charles. The soap’s combo of a then-unheard-of salary and perks package did the trick, and she joined the cast that same year as Dr. Lesley Williams.

Needless to say, Alexander was a hit. As Laura’s mom, she drove frontburner story for years until finally, a 1984 contract dispute led her to exit her pivotal role. Two years later, Another World paid big bucks to sign her up to play Mary, the matriarch of the McKinnon clan.

Three years after accepting the role, Alexander found to L.A.-to-New York commute to be too taxing, and she bailed. In 1996, she returned to General Hospital when it was revealed that Lesley hadn’t died in a car accident but had been kept more or less on ice by the dastardly Cassadines. Alas, over the years, her presence in Port Charles shrank to the point that it became a capital-letter Big Deal whenever she made a cameo. (Her last appearance was in 2021.)