Steve Bond

(ex-Jimmy Lee Holt, GENERAL HOSPITAL, 1983-87; ex-Mack Blake, SANTA BARBARA, 1989-90)

- Mara Levinsky

Soap fame came on fast for Steve Bond when he was cast on GH in 1983 as Edward Quartermaine’s illegitimate son, Jimmy Lee Holt. The job “completely changed my life,” says the actor, who is now mostly retired from show biz. He screen-tested for the role the day before he tied the knot with wife Cindy, with whom he’ll mark his 35th anniversary next year, and left in the midst of their honeymoon in Hawaii for a three-day trip back to California when GH summoned him for a second test. Fortunately, it was worth it; he was hired and Jimmy Lee quickly took off.

“I think it was a combination of things,” he muses now of the character’s popularity. “He was a bad boy, and the first scene I had was with Edward Quartermaine, the patriarch of the family. I show up at the door on a Harley-Davidson and I say, ‘Hey, Daddy, I’m here!’ Edward wanted nothing to do with me, so all of a sudden, that whole family had a foil. [Then-Executive Producer] Gloria Monty was brilliant. She created characters that people really responded to, believed in and got excited about.”