Former All My Children star Walt Willey will reprise his role as attorney Jackson Montgomery on General Hospital. Willey’s return is set to kick off on the long-running soap in July on ABC.
First reported by Soap Opera Digest and then Deadline, there is no indication of how long Willey’s return will last but we surmise that it will be more than just a brief appearance.
Some time has passed since Willey last played Montgomery; he brought the character to life in 1987 and enjoyed over two decades in the role, wrapping up the run in 2011 when All My Children ended its run.
Like all soap characters, Jackson Montgomery has a complex history. He arrived in All My Children’s Pine Valley as his brother, Travis, was running for the Senate. Years before, their sister Christine died in a boating accident and Jack took the blame for it when Travis had been to blame. To exact revenge, Jackson did everything in his power as his brother’s campaign manager to make Travis lose the race. He also had an affair with Travis’ wife. And the rest is soaps history.
It’s not the first time Jackson Montgomery has made the jump to another ABC show. He also appeared in a crossover on the ABC series The City in 1996. The City ran for two seasons on ABC, amassing over 300 episodes. It continued the story from another series, Loving, which ran from 1983 to 1995.
Willey appeared in several episodes of 1986’s Another World and Ryan’s Hope. He also had an appearance in As the World Turns in 1987 before making the jump to All My Children in the same year. According to IMDB, Willey appeared in 1000 episodes of All My Children, which is quite a feat and also a nice round number.
It’s always fun seeing characters jump from one show to another. Crossovers are still a big hit today, just as they were decades ago, and clearly they’re not just limited to soaps. We’ve seen big crossover events between Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star and the One Chicago shows in recent years and we’re sure to see more in the future.
