Robin Scorpio | |||||||||||||||||||||
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General Hospital character | |||||||||||||||||||||
Portrayed by | Kimberly McCullough | ||||||||||||||||||||
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First appearance | September 6, 1985 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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All My Children | ||||||||||||||||||||
Classification | Present; recurring | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Residence | Berkeley, California | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Family | Scorpio |
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Half-sisters | Leora Hayward |
Spouse | Patrick Drake (2008–14, 2016–) |
Daughters | Emma Drake |
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Robin Scorpio is a fictional character from the ABC Daytime soap opera General Hospital and its primetime SOAPnet spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift, originated and portrayed by Kimberly McCullough on and off for over 30 years since 1985. The character came to mainstream attention during a 1990s story arc where her boyfriend Stone Cates dies from AIDS and Robin is diagnosed as HIV-positive. Robin is also famous in the soap community for having been one of the few long-term soap characters to age in real time, not SORASed like most other child actors.
A seven-year-old McCullough was one of three actresses narrowed down for the part of five-year-old Robin, and was brought in to screen test with her on-screen parents Finola Hughes (Anna Devane) and Tristan Rogers (Robert Scorpio). Hughes recalled the event to MSN TV: "We just started improvising with her, like anything. We were throwing things at her and she was just talking away. Tristan and I were looking at each other over her head going, 'This is it! This is what we wanted.'" Improvisation skills were key for General Hospital's process in the 1980s. As Hughes explained: "It was very improvised. Very loose. We used to just talk around the plot and maybe every now and again dip our toe in the actual storyline."
McCullough debuted on September 6, 1985, and stayed with the series until September 12, 1996. Afterwards, she returned as a series regular for brief stints: January 17, 1997 to February 3, 1997; March 12, 1997 to April 8, 1997; June 23, 1997 to August 8, 1997; December 11, 1997 to January 20, 1999; June 20–21, 2000 (for The Nurses' Ball); and July 16, 2004. She appeared on "Port Charles" in 1998, for one episode. She also appeared on May 30 to June 4, 2001 on All My Children when Robin reunited with her mother Anna. McCullough returned to General Hospital as Robin on July 16, 2004 for the funeral of Lila Quartermaine before rejoining the soap full-time on October 12, 2005. She also appeared on both seasons of the spin-off series General Hospital: Night Shift in 2007 and 2008.