| Duke Lavery | |||||||||||||||||
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| General Hospital character | |||||||||||||||||
 Ian Buchanan as Duke Lavery | |||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by |
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| Duration |
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| First appearance | June 6, 1986 | ||||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | December 16, 2020 | ||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Past; guest | ||||||||||||||||
| Created by | Gloria Monty and Norma Monty[1] | ||||||||||||||||
| Introduced by |
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| Book appearances | Robin's Diary | ||||||||||||||||
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Duke Lavery is a fictional character from General Hospital, an American soap opera on the ABC network, primarily portrayed by Ian Buchanan. The role was created by executive producer Gloria Monty and co-head writer Norma Monty. Duke is introduced as the mysterious owner of a local night club who falls in love with police chief Anna Devane (Finola Hughes). Unbeknownst to the rest of Port Charles, Duke is laundering money for the mob but when his criminal ties cost him Anna, he teams with her ex-husband Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) to bring down the mob. Duke and Anna's romance becomes quite popular among fans achieving supercouple status and rivaling Anna's romance with Robert. In 1988, Duke's feud with the Jerome crime family leads to Anna miscarrying their unborn child. Duke and Anna's story comes to a tragic end in 1989 when Duke is presumed dead. The producers would recast the role with Greg Beecroft as Jonathan Paget who was revealed to be Duke with plastic surgery only for the character to be killed off in 1990 – dying in Anna's arms due fan disapproval.
In 2012, Buchanan reprised the role of Duke and the recast was retconned as Paget is revealed to be an impostor. However, Duke's return turns out to be a similar ordeal when it is revealed that Anna's longtime foe Cesar Faison (Anders Hove) has been posing as Duke in an attempt to seduce Anna. The real Duke is rescued and reunited with Anna and they soon renew their feud with the Jeromes with Duke teaming up with Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) to bring down Julian Jerome (William deVry). Duke is killed off in 2015 thanks to a botched hit on Julian's orders, leaving Anna devastated and craving justice.