Meet General Hospital star Genie Francis' famous Star Trek actor husband of 38 years

Famously, the wedding of Laura and Luke in General Hospital in 1981 drew 30 million viewers, and remains the most-viewed hour in soap opera history. 

Yet their marriage was not meant to last, and the pair divorced on-screen in June 2001 before reuniting and enjoying a vow renewal in November 2006 on what would have been their 25th anniversary. Luke was killed off-screen in a cable car accident in Austria in 2022.

Luckily for Genie, her life off-screen is very different, and she has been happily married for almost 40 years to a very familiar face, Star Trek actor Jonathan Frakes, who will honor his wife as she receives the Annual Daytime Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award on on October 30, 2026.

Genie was 20-years-old and has been starring in the ABC soap for five years when she took a role in the television miniseries Bare Essence, alongside 30-year-old actor Jonathan Frakes. 

They stayed in touch, and two years later they reunited for the miniseries North and South, during which they fell in love.

“So we were on location in Charleston and Natchez, and we fell in love – and now, somehow, she wasn't too young for me. So we have been together ever since our first date on North and South when we took a break for Memorial Day and went to New Orleans 38 years ago," Jonathan said in 2023 of those first few months.

On May 28 1988, two days after Genie's 26th birthday, the pair tied the knot and went on to welcome two children, son Jameson Ivor and daughter Elizabeth Frances, who goes by Eliza and is also a budding writer and director.

Speaking of how his daughter may have unrealistic expectations of the industry, Jonathan once said: "Eliza has this idea, because she was raised with the two of us, that this is how [things work]. And we both know that that's not the case, right? So it's hard, I would think, to come into a family where two people have been as fortunate as Genie and I have been."

In 1987, Jonathan was cast as William Riker in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, alongside Sir Patrick Stewart. A spin-off from the original Star Trek series, the show is set in the latter third of the 24th century and follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise and its crew. 

Commander Riker is the ship's first officer, a friend and colleague of Captain Picard, played by Sir Patrick.

The show became an instant success, and Jonathan began working behind–the-scenes as well, directing episodes and going on to direct the movies Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection.

Jonathan has remained a core part of the Star Trek franchise, as he has been involved in the follow-on series Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard. 

In the years after The Next Generation ended, Jonathan appeared in several hit network shows including Roswell, Castle, Leverage, and NCIS: Los Angeles, and he also directed episodes of all four shows.

In 2023, he appeared in his first Hallmark movie, A Biltmore Christmas, and has hosted Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction since 1998.