Genie Francis Biography, Age, Height, Career, Movies, Shows, Interview

Genie Francis Biography

Genie Francis born Eugenie Ann Francis Frakes is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Laura Spencer on the ABC Daytime soap opera General Hospital.

Genie Francis Age

Genie was born on May 26th, 1962, Englewood, New Jersey, United States. She is 56 years.

Genie Francis Image

Genie Francis Image

Genie Francis Height

She stands at a height of 1.65 m.

Genie Francis Husband|Genie Francis Jonathan Frakes

Francis met actor/director Jonathan Frakes while filming the television miniseries Bare Essence. After meeting again during the filming of the miniseries North and South, Francis and Frakes started dating in 1985. They became engaged in 1986 and married on May 28, 1988.

Genie Francis Children| Genie Francis Daughter

She has two children; Jameson Ivor Frakes, born in 1994, and Elizabeth Francis Frakes, born in 1997.

Genie Francis Young

Francis was born in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father was actor Ivor Francis. Her mother, Rosemary Daley, is a former actress/model of Lithuanian descent. Genie has an older brother, Ivor Jr.; a younger brother, Kenneth; and an older half-sister, Shelley, from her father’s first marriage.

Genie Francis Father

Her father was actor Ivor Francis

Genie Francis Career

Francis began acting in the two-part episode titled “Jury Duty” on the television series Family. Her biggest role came in 1977 with Laura Spencer on General Hospital as she was a recast. It would bring her instant stardom in the late 1970s. The television couple of Luke and Laura wed on November 17, 1981, with 30 million viewers tuning in to make the episode the highest-rated hour in soap opera history. At the peak of her success, Francis left the series in 1982 to try her hand at prime-time television. Soon afterward, she landed a starring role in her own series, Bare Essence, which was unsuccessful. She returned to General Hospital in 1983 for a limited run, to coincide with the departure of Luke when Anthony Geary decided to leave the series. Francis was also offered the lead role for the movie Splash but turned it down because she thought the script was silly.

In 1984, 1987 and 1990, Francis guest starred on Murder, She Wrote as Jessica Fletcher’s niece Victoria. In 1985, she starred in the miniseries North and South as Brett Main Hazard. Francis would reprise her role of Brett Main Hazard in 1986 and 1994 in the miniseries North and South: Book II and Heaven and Hell: North and South Book IIIrespectively. In 1993, she starred in the made-for-TV movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss as Kris Buckner which was based on the CBS television series of the same name.

Through the years, Francis has appeared on numerous other daytime soaps. She starred on Days of Our Lives as Diana Colville (a reporter who became involved with John Black, at the time believing himself to be Roman Brady) from 1987 to 1989 and on All My Children as a con artist and incest victim Ceara Connor Hunter from 1990 to 1992. She reprised her role as Ceara on Loving in a crossover storyline in November 1991. Ceara was “killed off” when her character prepared to move to that soap’s town of Corinth (although it was an unseen extra stepping off the bus into the line of fire), and years later, Genie was once again in Corinth on General Hospital when ex-husband Luke found her tied up in the Alden family basement. She then returned to General Hospital in 1993. In 1994, when Francis became pregnant with her first child, the pregnancy was written into the show and she took six weeks off for maternity leave. However, in early 1997, when she was pregnant again, she took a much longer absence from the show, staying away for nearly a year and a half. Francis abruptly left General Hospital in 2002 due to contract issues.

In 2004, Francis appeared in Teacher’s Pet and Thunderbirds. In June 2006, she began negotiating with the casting directors on the show to return to the role of Laura Spencer for a limited run through November. Francis returned with spectacular fanfare to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Luke and Laura’s wedding. Though she reprised the role for only one month, Francis’ stint garnered her a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, which she won in June 2007. Francis returned to General Hospital in August 2008 to reprise her role, appearing until November 12. In December 2007, she had a starring role in the Hallmark Channel movie, The Note, which earned her critical acclaim. On January 31, 2009, Francis reprised her role of Peyton MacGruder in the Hallmark Channel movie, Taking a Chance on Love. In 2012, she again reprised her role as Peyton MacGruder in the Hallmark Channel movie Notes from the Heart Healer.

In March 2011, it was announced that Francis would join The Young and the Restless as Genevieve Atkinson, the long-absent birth mother of Cane Ashby. With her appearance, she was reunited with former General Hospital co-star Tristan Rogers, who portrayed Colin Atkinson, Cane’s estranged biological father. She received her second Daytime Emmy nominations in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Genevieve in May 2012.

On September 13, 2012, it was announced that Francis had been let go from her role on The Young and the Restless due to budget cuts. On January 8, 2013, executive producer Frank Valentini and Entertainment Weekly confirmed that Francis would return to General Hospital, first airing on February 11. However, she remained with the series for only five months, as Laura departed for medical treatment in France, returning on June 5, 2015, as part of a storyline to help facilitate Anthony Geary’s departure from the show and would later sign a contract to remain with the show. In January 2018, Francis was dropped to recurring status and in late July 2018 signed a contract to return to General Hospital full-time.

Other works

Francis owned a store called The Cherished Home. It was located at 31 Searsport Avenue, Belfast, Maine 04915, and they also sold items online. The store sold cottage furnishings and home accessories. Francis sold the store in August 2012, due to her workload on The Young and the Restless. The store closed in the fall of 2012.

In May 2007, Francis began appearing in magazine advertisements as a spokesperson for the Medifast Diet, claiming she lost 30 pounds as of December 2007, using the diet.

In November 2009, Francis along with her brothers, Ivor Jr. and Kenneth released It’s Christmas Time Again. They decided to donate a part of all record sales to the Sisters of Saint Francis Children’s Mission in Cuernavaca. Francis decided to donate all of her proceeds/sales to this mission. This endeavor was a project involving various members of her family.

Genie Francis North And South

She played the role of Brett Main Hazard in the television show.

Genie Francis As Diana Colville

She starred as Diana Colville in the television show Days of Our Lives in the year 1987–89.

Genie Francis Television

Genie Francis Movies

Genie Francis Net Worth

She has an estimated net worth of $5 million.

Genie Francis Twitter

Tweets by GenieFrancis

Genie Francis Instagram

Genie Francis Interview

ICYMI: GENIE FRANCIS INTERVIEW

Updated : January 10, 2018

Soap Opera Digest: What would you say is your earliest memory of feeling like you needed to lose weight?

Genie Francis: It panicked me when I came on GENERAL HOSPITAL as a young teenager, and they put Laura, my character, on a diet. That totally freaked me out when I was 14 years old. Completely freaked me out. And I did something incredibly extreme at that time. My mother was upset, but I lost weight really fast. I swear, I lost about eight pounds in a week. But that sort of began me being extreme.

Digest: The pressure on women to be thin is not exclusive to actresses, but to what extent do you think growing up in the public eye and in Hollywood shaped the pressure you felt and the pressure you put on yourself to be a certain size?

Francis: It was unbearable. It was all about that, you know? It was terrifying. I mean, it’s different when you’re on television or if you’re a model, I suppose. Women are obsessing about their weight everywhere all over the place, whether they’re on TV or not, but you go on TV, and now it’s just — the pressure is unbelievable.

Digest: You’ve told us in the past that Nutri-system approached you at a time when you felt resigned to always being overweight. Why was that?

Francis: I just remember that at the time, I felt really desperate, like, “That’s it, I’m never going to get this weight off again. I’m never going back to work because I hate the way I look.” That’s when I got involved with Nutrisystem and, you know, it just changed my life entirely. I lost the first 30 pounds; then it was like, “Okay, maybe I’ll go back to work again.” It was right around that time that I got approached by GH, and then I said, “Yes.” I never would have said yes had I not lost those 30 pounds. I didn’t want to do that to myself. And then, of course, I lost 10 more, and then I felt really good and started having fun with my clothes and shopping and all that kind of stuff. And then my doctor told me I had to quit smoking, so I quit smoking. I’m a nonsmoker now for more than two years, and I did that! It wasn’t easy to quit smoking, and I didn’t try to diet or even try to [maintain my weight]. I put back some weight, like 10 pounds, which is not a lot, considering how much heavier I had been prior to that. It’s kind of amazing that I didn’t go up more than that! And once I felt like I was on steady ground again with the quitting smoking, I could start to work those 10 pounds back off again and I did. It works very quickly and easily on this diet. It’s not a painful, deprived, miserable thing.

Digest: Why do you think Nutrisystem has worked for you in ways that other weight-loss efforts haven’t?

Francis: When I first started doing it, my feeling about it was, “This won’t work. This cannot possibly work.” And then, of course, it did. It works, like, two pounds a week. It was amazing to me because I had only done these really awful, extreme starvation kind of diets. I just really didn’t believe that there was any other way to do it, and certainly not a way that included having dessert every night. I just didn’t believe that! But I think Nutrisystem is a more balanced, easy way [to lose weight]. It’s more like real life. You’re not going to be able to maintain these crazy, you know, no-carbohydrate diets. Those are things that you can’t do forever. With Nutrisystem, [coming to] understand portion control and proper eating serves you well, because you can go out into the world and eat at restaurants with friends, and with the others you really can’t.

Digest: At this stage, are you still eating the Nutrisystem food?

Francis: Yeah, I do. I have some favorite items that I cannot part with. Like the breakfast [sandwich] — it’s kind of like what you would think of as an Egg McMuffin, but I think it’s delicious. I love that thing. That’s one of my all-time favorites. They also have a little hamburger that is delicious, and chili, and their chicken noodle soup is also delicious and a really good lunch item.

Digest: How would you describe a typical day of eating? What does that look like for you?

Francis: Well, one of the things that Nutrisystem has you do is eat six times a day, and I just think there’s some kind of magic in that. I think your metabolism keeps going, your blood sugar stays very even, and I don’t feel really hungry. So I would have, a breakfast serving of the egg [sandwich], and you’re supposed to add another protein to it, like a hard-boiled egg, and then mid-morning you have a protein. Sometimes I’ll just have an egg white and maybe, like, a half of an apple or something. Then you have their lunch with a big salad and diet dressing, and then mid-afternoon you have a couple ounces of protein. Usually I’ll do a couple ounces of chicken that’s sort of plainly grilled, and I’ll put that into a third of a cup of brown rice with some salsa and I heat it up, and that’s like a mini-dinner, you know? If you do that around, like, 3:30, dinner all of a sudden I could manage. I could eat at dinner, and sometimes I go out, and when I do go out, I try to just keep it looking like what I did on my plate from a Nutrisystem dinner, about the size of that. I know what the proportions look like, and so I do it like that.
Digest: What would you say is the biggest difference in how you eat now than what you would have eaten before you went on this program?

Francis: Oh, I eat a little bit of all food groups, like there is a little bit of grain now in my diet, and I used to try to keep that out, and I would never eat, like, a little piece of a potato because any form of carbs was “bad”, and that kind of put me into this super-starvation thing, which then always came back to bite me because then when you get, like, one crumble of bread, you want to eat the whole loaf! So my eating is much more from all the food groups.

Digest: Would you describe yourself as still trying to lose weight, or are you more in a maintenance stage?

Francis: Well, I guess I’m kind of more in maintenance now because it’s the holidays and all, but after the holidays I’m sure I’ll be back on the weight-loss plan. That’s how life is.

Digest: What would you say are the most important lessons that you’ve taken away from learning a better way to eat via Nutrisystem?

Francis: Extremism doesn’t work, you know? It’s not a way to continue to live, and it’s not maintainable.

Digest: Weight-loss journeys tend to have both ups and downs. What stands out as an up and a down for you over the course of yours?

Francis: Well, there’s lots of ups and downs, you know? I didn’t do it perfectly. There are days when I screwed up and I’d get really depressed. One of the things that’s most important is forgiving yourself and getting back up on the horse. It’s all about the next day and starting over. I was really disappointed in myself, and when I quit smoking — I quit smoking, which I should just be happy about, but I put back on some weight and I felt horrible, and I was working, you know? I was lucky that Nutrisystem didn’t give up on me, because they could have. They could have said, “You’re not doing what we want you to do right now, so good-bye.” And they didn’t, they stayed with me, they held my hand and they got me back to where I ought to be. So, I was lucky.

Digest: What role does exercise play in your life these days?

Francis: I try to exercise as often as possible, more now than ever because I find if I rest and take it easy, my bones and my joints hurt. Walking is my big thing. That’s really how I like to exercise the most. If I’m doing my walking and actually lifting a little bit of weight, oddly enough my joint pain goes away. It also helps me even out my mood, which is hard when you’re in your mid-50s and you’re going through the change of life, and exercise does all of that for me.

Digest: What do you do in the winter if you’re on the East Coast?

Francis: I walk on a treadmill.

Digest: At GH, do you talk nutrition and diet with any of your castmates?

Francis: Yes, everybody talks about it, everybody’s thinking about it, the men and the women. It’s interesting to see that we’re all trying to deal with the same problem
Digest: As you reflect on the mental part of taking control of your weight, can you compare where you are today to where you were when you first started on Nutrisystem?

Francis: It’s like the difference between being hopeless and giving up — in all things in life, not just weight — and the joy of life, the possibility of career, the sense of hope, the sense of enjoying your youth and your attractiveness. None of that was there. When you start to lose the weight in a healthy way, and you get your life back, it’s just, like, [the difference between] being a zombie and being alive. It’s completely different when you’re into your health.

Digest: Were you cognizant at the time that it was your weight that was making you feel that way?

Francis: Oh, yeah. I knew that it was my weight, but I felt like it was insurmountable. I didn’t feel like I had the energy or the ability to change it.

Digest: In the past, you’ve told us about feeling a constant inner panic about your weight. Do you feel that’s subsided? Or is it something that you’ve just learned to manage better?

Francis: I manage it better. I think part of that is getting older. I won’t say that I don’t still have moments of panic and worry. Whenever I have to dress up for something for the show or events or stuff like that, it’s always a little uncomfortable, but overall I accept myself much more than I did ever before.
Adapted from : soapoperadigest

Note: This biography is based on the available information as of 2023, and real-time updates or developments are being updated by our editorial team.