In its nearly six decades on ABC, General Hospital has been home to soap opera vets and rising talents. The daytime drama helped launch the careers of actors like Mark Hamill and John Stamos while being the stomping ground for legends like Anthony Geary, Genie Francis and several others.

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Due to its widespread popularity in the 80s that lasted well into the 2000s, plenty of household names wanted to take a spin around Port Charles, while some got to appear on the soap long before they became Hollywood royalty — or in some cases, actual royalty.

Meghan Markle As Nurse Jill

Meghan Markle and Ingo Rademacher on General Hospital

Long before she was ever considered a Duchess, Meghan Markle was a rising actress in Hollywood, with leading roles in Suits and two Hallmark Channel movies. But a lesser-known stint of Markle's was one of her first television appearances on General Hospital.

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Markle is credited as being in one episode as a nurse named Jill, appearing behind the nurses station with only two lines and sharing scenes with John J. York and Ingo Rademacher.

James Franco As Franco

James Franco on General Hospital

When James Franco longed for a stint on a soap opera, he was given his desired role as the creepy and mysterious villain who went by the name of Franco. The actor played the character of an obscure artist who would murder his muse and tag his work with a cryptic CO77X, all while stalking his long-lost twin brother Jason Morgan.

Franco ended his run on the show in 2012 when the character was killed off, but the role continued to live on a year later when soap vet Roger Howarth returned to General Hospital to bring Franco back from the dead.

Chandra Wilson As Tina Estrada, Dr. Linda Massey, Sydney Val Jean

Chandra Wilson on General Hospital

Chandra Wilson is used to acting in hospitals, playing the role of Dr. Miranda Bailey on Grey's Anatomy since its first season. But Wilson hopped over to ABC's daytime doctor drama in three separate guest appearances. The first was in 2014 as a psych patient named Tina Estrada, playing opposite Jon Lindstrom.

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Her second appearance was in 2018 as family therapist Dr. Linda Massey, dishing out advice to Verna Watson's and Donnell Turner's characters. Her third and latest appearance came in 2019 as Sydney Val Jean, an editor for the fictional fashion magazine Crimson.

Stephen A. Smith As Brick

Stephen A. Smith and Maurice Benard on General Hospital

ESPN sportscaster Stephen A. Smith has also been a self-proclaimed General Hospital superfan, admitting he would watch the soap every day after school with his sisters.

Smith got the role of a lifetime when he was cast as Sonny Corinthos' righthand man Brick in 2016 — a role he appears in to this day — all thanks to Sonny's portrayer Maurice Benard securing him the gig after an appearance on Smith's ESPN show First Take.

Carla Hall As Cook Two

Carla Hall on General Hospital

Chef and talkshow host Carla Hall hosted The Chew for its seven-season run on ABC, airing every weekday right before General Hospital. In 2018, the two shows collided when Hall made a special guest appearance for GH's annual Nurses Ball.

Hall appears as the Quartmermaine's personal chef nicknamed Cook Two (after the first Cook's fictional passing in 2012) and served up trouble for Olivia at the Nurses Ball. Hall first appeared on GH in 2013 as herself along with the entire cast of The Chew.

Richard Simmons As Himself

Richard Simmons on General Hospital

The 80s saw plenty of well-known celebs appear on GH both as guests and contract players, but a memorable one was Richard Simmons as the fitness guru himself.

Simmons maintained a recurring role on the soap for four years in the 80s, teaching exercise classes for characters like Lesley and Monica. Simmons reprised his role for the show's 50th anniversary celebration in 2013, where he gets into a rivalry between himself and Lucy.

Gloria Stuart As Catherine Flynn

Gloria Stuart on General Hospital

Actress Gloria Stuart, best known for her role as present-day Rose in 1997's Titantic, scored a guest-starring role on a New Years episode of General Hospital in 2002.

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Stuart played Catherine Flynn, owner of a speakeasy club that existed in the basement of Kelly's Diner and was the location of a mob shootout in 1926. When Carly and Ric find Catherine in the abandoned basement on New Year's Eve, she tells them of the club's history in flashbacks featuring the GH cast, similar to the role Stuart played in Titanic.

Melissa Peterman As Melissa Santoro-Picard

Melissa Peterman on General Hospital

Sitcom star Melissa Peterman made the leap to daytime drama in her 2015 cameo on General Hospital. Peterman played an old friend of Olivia's from Bensonhurst named Melissa Santoro-Picard.

The appearance was part of a crossover event between General Hospital and Freeform's Baby Daddy, where Peterman appeared with her Baby Daddy co-star Derek Theler and GH's Kelly Monaco guest-starred on the sitcom that same month.

Mario Lopez As Himself

Mario Lopez and Michelle Stafford on General Hospital

The annual General Hospital Nurses Balls are known for their celebratory guest appearances, and in 2017, the Nurses Ball red carpet got a special host.

Mario Lopez got to interview Port Charles residents alongside Nina Reeves, played by Michelle Stafford, who presented Lopez with a Daytime Emmy Award in 2014 for Extra. Lopez's real-life daughter Gia also showed up on the red carpet during the GH episode.

Elizabeth Taylor As Helena Cassadine

Elizabeth Taylor and Anthony Geary on General Hospital

While infamous Port Charles villainess Helena Cassadine has been played by Constance Towers since 1997, Helena's original portrayer for just three episodes in the 80s was the one and only Elizabeth Taylor.

The actress was such a big fan of the show, she agreed to come on as Helena, who crashes Luke and Laura's world-famous wedding and sets a curse on the couple.

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