Helena Cassadine is a fictional character who is the main antagonist of the American soap opera General Hospital, famously originated by film actress Elizabeth Taylor in November 1981.

[5] A fan of the series and wildly popular supercouple Luke Spencer and Laura Webber (Anthony Geary and Genie Francis), Taylor called then-Executive Producer Gloria Monty in 1981 and asked for a featured role.

[4] She was cast as Helena, the vengeful widow of villain Mikkos Cassadine (John Colicos), who had died at the climax of that summer's popular "Ice Princess" storyline.

[3][4][6] Arriving on the canvas on November 10, 1981, Mrs. Mikkos Cassadine sends her Emissary to all the prominent citizens of PC with invitations to attend a reception she is giving.

Luke and Laura's November 16, 1981, wedding, featuring Taylor's Helena, was watched by 30 million viewers and remains the highest-rated hour in American soap opera history.

On March 2, 2013, Highlight Hollywood reported that Towers had returned to the set to begin work on a new storyline in honor of the show's 50th anniversary.

Although Helena allegedly died on camera of natural causes in November 2015, Towers would return on several occasions in 2016, first for a videotaped will reading, then as part of several characters' nightmares.

Mikkos's widow Helena appears in Port Charles just in time to curse Luke and Laura from the sidelines of their November 16, 1981 wedding.

Told that Luke was dead, Laura had been forced to marry Mikkos and Helena's son Stavros Cassadine, who had fallen in love with her.

Nikolas saves Lulu's life with a bone marrow transplant, but Luke and Laura's marriage is destroyed by the revelation of this secret.

Around this time, Luke visits a bedridden Helena, gloating at her condition but vowing to have his revenge when she is well enough to fully experience him murdering her.

Lucky is presumed dead in a fire in May 1999; he reappears in February 2000 having been kidnapped on Helena's orders and brainwashed into serving her.

In 2001, it is revealed Stavros has been in cryonic suspension in a secret room below General Hospital since his apparent "death" in 1983, waiting for a time when medical science could revive him.

Nikolas and Emily searched for them and tracked Colleen to Chicago where she had dyed her hair and gotten a job at a daycare center to save enough and start a new life with "her son".

Helena reappears in Port Charles at the General Hospital grand re-opening on April 13, 2009[9] demanding Nikolas return a painting of Saint Gregoire to her,[24] which he does.

[26] As Helena leaves town on her jet, she tears the paper off the backside of the painting and reveals a birth certificate.

Her nurse Mischa tells Luke's kids Ethan and Lulu there is another Cassadine, named Valentin, whom even Helena fears.

After stirring up even more trouble after arriving in Port Charles, Nikolas uses his position in the hospital's board of directors to have Helena sent back to Greece.

In an attempt to keep tabs on Elizabeth, Helena makes a large donation to the institution, getting an upper hand with the staff.

Upon returning to Port Charles, Nikolas banishes Helena from Wyndemere for her actions and warns her to stay away from Elizabeth and their son.

After delaying this revelation when Elizabeth's middle child Jake is killed in a hit-and run accident, she finally reveals the truth to Lucky and Nikolas.

Shortly afterward, she confronts Lucky to taunt him, while insisting the whole time that Aiden was really a Cassadine and that Elizabeth's third DNA test was the tampered one.

On January 11, 2012, Helena is seen lurking the tunnels of Wyndemere holding a dagger and listening in on Ethan and "Cassandra's" conversation.

Irina tells Ethan that she was forced to play the part and take a place in Helena's never ending vendetta against Laura and the Spencer family.

Helena seeks her goal when she informs Ethan that she wanted him to fall for Irina in order to break his heart.

Their plan fails, and Luke is put into a mental hospital while Nikolas bans Helena to banishment in the Cassadine compound once again, this time apparently for good.

By late November 2015, "Jason" has learned his true identity and clues take him, Samantha and Elizabeth to the Cassadine compound where Helena appears to be dying.

The following February after a man who was much like her instincts at the All Saints Church who held everybody hostage, various Port Charles residents showed up except Sonny for the filmed reading of Helena's will where she continued her game playing from beyond the grave, sending Laura on a wild goose chase in regards to an empty book and giving Alexis the knife with which she slit her mother's throat.

Helena continued to appear to various characters in their nightmares including Sonny's, harassing them in regards to the curse she had put on them at the time of her death because the district attorney was Paul Hornsby.

In 2024, Charlie Mason from Soaps She Knows included Helena in his list of the worst mothers in American soap operas, explaining, "As if it wasn't bad enough that Mommie Dearest played favorites with her kids — fawning over the vile Stavros — she tried to murder his brother Stefan and ordered the execution of their sister Irena!