All good things must come to an end, and today marks the end of an era for General Hospital. Co-head writer Jean Passanante retires from her elite position today and has sent a message to fans to celebrate the bittersweet occasion.
The celebrated scribe took to Twitter and shared, "Today is my last day at #GH and I'm retiring from writing soaps -- at least for now. Love and respect to all of you who adore the genre."
Today is my last day at #GH and I'm retiring from writing soaps -- at least for now. Love and respect to all of you who adore the genre.
- Jean Passanante (@PFossil) July 27, 2017
News first broke that Passanante planned to retire from soap operas back in June. The five-time Daytime Emmy winner shared that she plans to focus on other meaningful things in her life, and that includes baking pies.
"Friends, soon I'll have more time for pie-baking because I've decided not to renew my contract with General Hospital," Passanante wrote earlier this summer. "I'll retire from soap-writing in August. The irony is that Con Ed must replace a gas pipe, and they show no signs of doing that in the foreseeable future. So we have no oven. It's like the Twilight Zone episode in which all Burgess Meredith wants is to read, and after a nuke drops on his town, he finds himself among the ruins of the library with all the books he can possibly read at his fingertips. And then he breaks his glasses."
As she clarified to fans shortly after news of her retirement broke, Passanante was not fired from the ABC soap, and she left on her own terms.
"Jean Passanante has been a tremendous talent to the ABC family," said Vicki Dummer, head of Current Series Programming, ABC Entertainment in a statement. "Having come full circle -- she began her career with ABC in 1992 -- it is only fitting that she has decided to end her story where it began. While we are all sad to see her go, we are immensely impressed by her creative contributions and are grateful to have worked with her throughout her career and wish her well in her retirement."
Are you sad to see Passanante go? What direction would you like to see GH go in the months ahead? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
