GENERAL Hospital revealed a major character change is coming to the show this week as one of its stars battles health issues.
There are often comings and goings happenings on soaps, and the latest cast switch-up involves longtime cast member Nancy Lee Grahn.
Nancy, who turns 66 on Thursday, has been starring as Alexis Davis on General Hospital since 1996, but she’ll be taking this week off as she recovers from surgery.
Instead, she’ll be temporarily replaced by actress Stephanie Erb.
General Hospital confirmed to Soap Hub that the 58-year-old will make her debut on the show to fill in as Alexis over the next few days.
While this will be her first time in the cast of the main series, she previously recurred on the spinoff show, Port Charles, for a few episodes as Camille Owens.
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The series ran from 1997 to 2003, and Stephanie’s episodes aired in 2000.
Soap fans might also recognize her from a recurring role as Dr. Janice Mead on The Young and the Restless in 2014 and an appearance on Days of Our Lives in 2001.
Stephanie will be stepping in as Alexis for a short while after the character’s longtime portrayer, Nancy, underwent back surgery and had to take some time off from work.
She revealed to fans on Facebook in early March that she had “been working- ish for the last few months” and just as she’d started to do so every day, she learned she needed “minor outpatient surgeries.”
Nancy explained that she needed the operations for “a stubborn benign thing that decided to park itself on a nerve in my back.”
Toward the end of her post, she thanked General Hospital’s “wonderful” producers for “graciously navigating around it,” which fans later learned involved the Stephanie temporarily replacing her.
A few weeks ago, Nancy updated fans on how she’s been feeling lately amid her health issues.
“Surgery was a Godsend,” the 65-year-old wrote.
She continued: “The brilliant Dr. Matthew Chong at Kerlan Jobe swiftly removed the pesky cyst that parked itself on my facet joint in between a cluster of nerves on top and one seriously mean one on the bottom.
“I tell ya, surgery and the aftermath was a cakewalk after lugging around my little friend for 3 months.
“I didn’t take even one of the lovely painkillers. Just 2 tylenol in all.”
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Nancy added that she was going to be “off for another week,” which would make it “2 1/2 in all.”
In the meantime, she said she was “happily shuffl[ing] around the house with my back brace,” noting that “every day is better than the next.”
