'General Hospital' Could Bring Back 'One Life To Live' Actors As New Characters

'General Hospital' Bringing Back Actors ... As New Characters

Some soap opera trickery might be going down in order to get "One Life to Live" actors back on "General Hospital."

When "One Life to Live" wrapped in January 2012 and its plans to move it online fell through, Michael Easton, Roger Howarth and Kristen Alderson moved over to "General Hospital" playing their "OLTL" characters. However, "One Life to Live" returns to life on Monday, April 29 and Prospect Park, the company behind the revival, has called back its actors and their characters. Now TV Guide reports "General Hospital" may bring Easton, Howarth and Alderson back to Port Charles as ... completely new characters. By doing so, ABC hopes to avoid legal problems with Prospect Park.

"Prospect Park understands that ‘General Hospital’ has featured Llanview transplants Michael Easton (John) and Kristen Alderson (Starr) among others while we arranged production of the new version of ‘One Life to Live.’ These characters, who we own under our agreement, are obviously essential to our production efforts, and a large reason we licensed the program," Prospect Park said in a statement in February. "We also understand that legions of ‘General Hospital’ fans have grown to love these actors and characters in a short time. So even though we are paying ABC millions of dollars to license the shows, we have been, and continue to be willing to equally share the characters with ‘General Hospital’ and ABC. It's a win-win for the actors, the shows and fans, who love all of the shows and storylines. We hope to work out these agreements with ABC and the actors."

According to TV Guide, "General Hospital" executive producer Frank Valentini -- the former "One Life to Live" boss -- told them he couldn't comment for legal reasons. "It's not like I'm trying to keep a secret. [ABC] doesn't want me to say anything," TV Guide quotes Valentini as saying.

Request for comment from ABC and Prospect Park was not immediately returned.

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