Beloved General Hospital and Ryan’s Hope Star ‘With the Wicked Grin and Twinkle in His Eye’ Dead at 78
Daytime has been hit with yet another death, as the family of beloved General Hospital and Ryan’s Hope vet Ron Hale announced that the actor passed way on August 27 at 78. An official obituary was published by Bryant Funeral Home, Inc. out of St. George, S.C.
Of his passing, the ABC soap stated, “The entire General Hospital family is saddened to hear of Ron Hale’s passing. We would like to extend our condolences to his loved ones during this difficult time. He was an incredible actor and an unforgettable colleague. May he rest in peace.”
Hale’s first role came in 1968 on N.Y.P.D. before he landed his daytime debut on Search for Tomorrow a year later as Walt Driscol and did two stints on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing as Dr. Jim Abbott. However, no one will ever forget his next soap, the one that landed him on the genre’s map. In 1975, Hale was cast as Dr. Roger Coleridge on Ryan’s Hope and stayed there until 1989.
Ryan’s Hope leading lady Louise Shaffer, whose Rae Woodard played doctor with Roger shortly after her debut, recalled Hale as “the man with the wicked grin and the twinkle in the eye who was one of the kindest people I’ve known. One of my first scenes on [the show] was a love scene — read: sex scene — with Ron. Those scenes were so tough, you were wearing your bra — straps slipped down — so you had to somehow keep the sheets up to cover it while you angled your head so that the camera didn’t get nose hair shots. Then, in an icy, cold studio, you had to crawl all over a colleague projecting steamy passion. And in the case of that scene with Ron, the colleague was a guy I’d only just met.
“I wish I could remember the joke he cracked as the stage manager counted us down, but we both laughed, which the perfect way to start,” she added. “Then he grabbed a fistful of sheet and, in a practiced move, pulled it up over me as he unleashed the grin and got us through the scene. My hero. Rest in peace, Ron.”
Following his long run on Ryan’s Hope, Hale went on to be the first actor to play Sonny’s father, Mike Corbin, on General Hospital from 1995 to 2010 and crossed his character over to the ABC soap’s spinoff Port Charles.
The actor also turned up on various primetime series and films such as Matlock, MacGyver, Trial by Jury and Easy, to name a few. In 2017, he appeared alongside Maurice Benard (Sonny) as Father Reinhart in the film The Ghost and the Whale, which followed the story of Joseph, who worked to exonerate himself after going to sea with the love of his life only to return alone.
Soaps.com extends our deepest condolences to Hale’s nieces and nephews and all who knew and loved him.