Jack Wagner | |
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 Wagner performing live in 2009 | |
| Born | Peter John Wagner II [1] October 3, 1959 Washington, Missouri, U.S. |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1982–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
Peter John Wagner II (born October 3, 1959), known as Jack Wagner, is an American actor, singer, and golfer, best-known for his roles on General Hospital , Santa Barbara , The Bold and the Beautiful , and Melrose Place .
Wagner was born in Washington, Missouri, to Peter John Wagner, a car salesman (died 1990), and Irene M. ( née Amberg) "Scotty" Wagner (1920-2022), a homemaker. [2] His only sibling, his elder brother Dennis Wagner (1953-2018), died of leukemia after a nearly two decade battle. [3]
Raised Catholic, Wagner attended St. Gertrude's parochial school and St. Francis Borgia Regional High School in his hometown, where he played football and basketball. He attended the University of Missouri for one year, then junior college before eventually enrolling at the University of Arizona, where he tried out for the golf team and drama department. The drama department offered him a full scholarship. [4]
Wagner first appeared on the scene in 1982 in the role of Clint Masterson, in Douglas Marland's short-lived cable soap opera, A New Day In Eden, co-produced by Susan Flannery, who would later co-star with Wagner on The Bold and the Beautiful .
His most famous role has been Frisco Jones on the soap opera General Hospital (1983–1987, 1989–1991, 1994–95, 2013). He was half of a supercouple (with real-life wife Kristina Wagner's character, Felicia) and played the father of Georgie and Maxie Jones. He played Warren Lockridge on Santa Barbara from 1991 until that series' conclusion in 1993.
He appeared in several made for television films, including Lady Killer and Frequent Flyer . He appeared for many years on Aaron Spelling's Fox nighttime soap opera Melrose Place , as the alternately caring/conniving Dr. Peter Burns (1994–99); he directed episodes as well. His character and Heather Locklear's "Amanda" were featured together on a beach in the series finale's closing scene, having faked their own deaths. He appeared in another Aaron Spelling project, the short-lived NBC television series Titans with Yasmine Bleeth in 2000, and in Spelling's daytime soap opera Sunset Beach (in 1997).
From 2003 to 2012, he played Nick Marone on the CBS daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful . On February 28, 2006, he and a contestant Christine Denos won $142,550 (including the standard $100,000 top prize) in the game show Wheel of Fortune ; at the time, it set a single-episode largest winning record (and second largest overall) until Michelle Lowenstein surpassed said record on October 14, 2008, as the inaugural $1,000,000 winner. [5]
In 1985, Wagner was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for "Best Younger Actor" for his work on General Hospital. He was nominated again in 2005 for "Best Lead Actor" for The Bold and the Beautiful. [6]
Wagner guest-starred on primetime television in notable programs such as Monk , Hot in Cleveland , and Castle . [7] [8]
In January 2013, it was announced that Wagner had agreed to reprise the iconic role of Frisco Jones on General Hospital for several episodes in early 2013. [9] Since 2014, he has played Bill Avery on When Calls the Heart . [10] Wagner also starred on the Hallmark Channel in the Wedding March movies, with The Wedding March 3: Here Comes the Bride having premiered in February 2018 [11] and Netflix movie Falling for Christmas in 2022.
In 2012, Wagner was a contestant on season 14 of Dancing with the Stars , partnered with professional dancer Anna Trebunskaya. [12] They were eliminated from the competition on April 3, 2012, placing 11th.
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(July 2023) |
Wagner has recorded six albums. In 1985, he topped the Billboard charts with the ballad "All I Need". The single reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
| Year | Single | Chart Position | Album | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [14] | US AC [15] | CAN | CAN AC | AUS [16] | |||
| 1984 | "All I Need" | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 93 | All I Need |
| 1985 | "Premonition" (also B-side of "Lady of My Heart") | 101 | — | — | — | — | |
| "Lady of My Heart" | 76 | 34 | — | — | — | ||
| "Too Young" | 52 | 15 | — | 4 | — | Lighting Up the Night | |
| 1986 | "Love Can Take Us All the Way" (with Valerie Carter) | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1987 | "Weatherman Says" | 67 | — | — | — | — | Don't Give Up Your Day Job |
| 1993 | "It's My Baby Too" | — | — | — | — | — | Alone in a Crowd |
| 2012 | "Will the Rain Fall Down" | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single |
Although Wagner had been playing the guitar since he was 14, his initial audition for the role of Frisco Jones on General Hospital with producer Gloria Monty did not include any singing. [17] Wagner had five auditions with ABC before ultimately winning the role of "Frisco Jones". His final audition in 1983 included performing the Kenny Loggins song "Wait a Little While". [18] [19]
ABC musical honcho Kelli Ross hooked Wagner up with Quincy Jones [18] who oversaw his initial 5 song EP All I Need. Eventually, they would release a full ten song LP of All I Need once the song "All I Need" began to rise up the charts. Quincy Jones protégés Glen Ballard and Clif Magness produced Wagner's first two albums on Qwest Records/Warner Brothers. Wagner's singing talents led him to appearances on American Bandstand , Solid Gold , Soul Train and The Merv Griffin Show . [17]
Eventually, his musical theater talent led to the title role(s) in a Broadway run of Jekyll & Hyde , making him the first celebrity casting. Wagner has stated this was "a role of a lifetime" and performing the dual characters on Broadway was his most fulfilling professional experience. [20] Wagner says "the role I had the most fun playing, TV-wise, would be Dr. Peter Burns (Melrose Place). He was sort of an evil character who could redeem himself. Theatrically, it was when I played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Jekyll & Hyde on Broadway." [21] He also appeared in a national theatre tour in 1987 in the role of Tony in West Side Story , and a national tour of Grease in 1988.
While he toured as a rock/pop performer in concert consistently from 1985 to 1988, Wagner did not perform in the 1990s except for an occasional benefit appearance. In 2005, Wagner resumed performing in concert sporadically. His more recent concerts have included a diverse blend of songs from his own catalog, cover songs from artists such as Neil Young, Lindsey Buckingham, and Paul McCartney, and originals.
In 2012, Wagner released new music, the single "Will the Rain Fall Down" on iTunes. He also performed the song acoustically on The Bold and the Beautiful . In 2014, Wagner released the full-length release On the Porch. A notable song from this release was the fan-favorite "The Right Key", which made its debut on General Hospital in 1989. He made a music video for "Driving Miss Daisy" which premiered on YouTube.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Play Murder for Me | Paul Slater | |
| 2000 | Artificial Lies | Dr. Peter Rexler | |
| 2003 | Cupid's Prey | Jeremy Wetherton | |
| 2022 | Falling for Christmas | Beauregard Belmont | |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | A New Day in Eden | Clint Masterson | Episode 1.1 |
| 1984–1991 1994–1995 2013 | General Hospital | Frisco Jones | |
| 1988 | Moving Target | Tim Sutcliff - Scott Syndicate | TV movie |
| 1989 | Swimsuit | Hart Chadway | TV movie |
| 1991-1993 | Santa Barbara | Warren Lockridge | Main cast; 64 episodes |
| 1994–1999 | Melrose Place | Dr. Peter Burns | Main cast; 139 episodes |
| 1995 | Sirens | Jack | Episode: "Missing" |
| Lady Killer | Dr. Elliman | TV movie | |
| 1996 | Frequent Flyer | Nick Rawlings | TV movie |
| 1997 | Echo | Max Jordan / Steven Jordan | TV movie |
| Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman | Randy Goode | Episode: "Sex, Lies and Videotape" | |
| Sunset Beach | Jacques Dumont / Liam | 3 Episodes | |
| 1998 | Dirty Little Secret | Jack Ramer | TV movie |
| Miss Universe 1998 | Himself | Anchor | |
| 1999 | Miss Universe 1999 | Himself | Anchor |
| 2000 | Nowhere to Land | Captain John Prescott | TV movie |
| 2000–2001 | Titans | Jack Williams | 9 episodes |
| 2002 | Trapped: Buried Alive | Michael Cooper | TV movie |
| 2003 | Ghost Dog: A Detective Tail | Kyle Caldwell | TV movie |
| 2003–2012 | The Bold and the Beautiful | Nick Marone | Main cast; 1334 episodes |
| 2009 | Monk | Perry Walsh | Episode: "Mr. Monk and Sharona" |
| 2011–2013 | Hot in Cleveland | Dr. Aaron Everett | 2 episodes |
| 2012 | Dancing with the Stars | Himself | Partnered with Anna Trebunskaya; placed 11th |
| 2013 | Castle | Billy Piper | Episode: "Significant Others" |
| See Dad Run | Scooter Sullivan | Episode: "See Dad Swoon" | |
| 2014 | My Gal Sunday | Danny O'Brien | Hallmark Movies & Mysteries TV Movie |
| 2014–present | When Calls the Heart | Bill Avery | Main cast; 61 episodes |
| 2015 | Ray Donovan | Sandy Patrick | Episode: "Breakfast of Champions" |
| 2016 | The Wedding March | Mick Turner | Hallmark Channel TV Movie; also executive producer |
| 2017 | Love on the Vines | Grant Gerritson | TV movie |
| The Wedding March 2: Resorting to Love | Mick Turner | Hallmark Channel TV Movie; also executive producer | |
| 2018 | The Wedding March 3: Here Comes the Bride | ||
| The Wedding March 4: Something Old, Something New | |||
| 2019 | My Boyfriend's Back: Wedding March 5 | ||
Wagner was married to actress Kristina Wagner, who played opposite him on General Hospital as his love interest Felicia Cummings. They divorced in 2006. [22] They had two sons, born in 1990 and 1994. [23] Their younger son died in Los Angeles on June 6, 2022, at age 27. A drug overdose is suspected, pending toxicology results. [24]
On June 13, 2022, Jack and his former wife announced a scholarship fund in honour of their son who struggled with addiction issues. All funds donated to the Harrison Wagner Scholarship Fund will be used to directly help young men pay their rent or a portion of their rent who could not otherwise afford their care at New Life House (a sober living facility in California). [24]
Wagner began dating his Melrose Place love interest Heather Locklear in 2007; they became engaged in August 2011. [25] [26] The couple called off their engagement on November 15, 2011.
In May 2013, Wagner confirmed to Soaps In Depth that he and his former The Bold and the Beautiful co-star Ashley Jones had been dating for about a year. They were no longer together as of 2015. [27]
In November 2011, Jack met his 23-year-old daughter, Kerry, for the first time at a concert in Florida. Kerry had been placed for adoption at birth by her birth mother and had recently hired a private investigator to find her biological parents. [28] This was the subject of Wagner's "personal story" in his Dancing with the Stars performance on April 2, 2012.
Wagner is a highly accomplished golfer and at one point considered a career in pro golf. He won the Missouri junior college championship in 1980, [17] and is the only non-professional athlete to have won the American Century Celebrity Golf Classic, an annual competition featuring American sports and entertainment celebrities. Wagner first won the event in 2006 and repeated as champion in 2011, when he bested Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. [29] He has a total of nineteen top ten finishes. [30] The tournament, televised by NBC in July, is played over three rounds at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Lake Tahoe. [31]
Wagner has a Celebrity Golf Classic named after him that raises funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Wagner created the event to support the Society's mission to cure such cancers as leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families. The Golf Classic raised more than $600,000 in its first two years to fund critical cancer research and patient services. [32]
Melrose Place is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on Fox from July 8, 1992, to May 24, 1999, for seven seasons. The show follows the lives of a group of young adults living in an apartment complex on Melrose Place, in West Hollywood, California. The show was created by Darren Star for Fox and executive produced by Aaron Spelling for his company, Spelling Television. It was the second series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise. Season one and season two were broadcast on Wednesday at 9 pm, after Beverly Hills, 90210. In 1994, for its third-season and for the rest of its run, the show moved to Monday at 8 p.m.
Heather Deen Locklear is an American actress famous for her role as Amanda Woodward on Melrose Place (1993–1999), for which she received four consecutive Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She is also known for her role as Sammy Jo Carrington on Dynasty from 1981 to 1989, her first major television role, which began a longtime collaboration with producer Aaron Spelling.
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. It premiered on March 23, 1987, as a sister show to the Bells' other soap opera The Young and the Restless; several characters from each of the two shows have crossed over to the other since the early 1990s. Set in Los Angeles, California, the show centers upon the Forrester family and their haute couture business.
Emma Elizabeth Wylie Samuelson MBE known professionally as Emma Samms, is an English actress and TV host, known for her role as Holly Sutton on the American daytime soap opera General Hospital and as the second actress to play Fallon Carrington Colby on the prime time soap opera Dynasty. She also portrayed the recurring role of Amanda Vardalis on the British soap opera Doctors.
Heather Marie Tom is an American actress and television director. She is best known for her roles as Victoria Newman on The Young and the Restless, Kelly Cramer on One Life to Live and All My Children, and Katie Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful.
Kristina Wagner is an American actress. She is sometimes credited by the name Kristina Malandro. She is best known for her role as Felicia Jones on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. She also briefly had a small role on the ABC series Hotel in the late 1980s.
Ashley Aubra Jones is an American actress. She is known for her roles in soap operas as Megan Dennison on The Young and the Restless and as Bridget Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful. She also portrayed the recurring role as Daphne in the second season of the HBO drama series True Blood.
Jacklyn Lee Zeman was an American actress who portrayed Bobbie Spencer on the ABC daytime soap opera General Hospital for 45 years.
Ingo Rademacher is a German-Australian television actor best known for his role of Jasper "Jax" Jacks on the American daytime soap opera General Hospital, which he played in multiple stints from 1996 to 2021. In 2012, he played Officer Sacks in the film Alex Cross. Rademacher placed 5th on the 16th season of Dancing with the Stars in 2013.
Bridget Forrester is a fictional character from The Bold and the Beautiful, an American soap opera on the CBS network. She first appeared in 1992 as the infant daughter of Brooke Logan and Eric Forrester. The character was portrayed by actress Ashley Jones from December 2004 to January 2011 as a regular, but was dropped to recurring status and continued to make appearances up until February 29, 2012, when Bridget left for New York along with a few others. Since 2013, Jones has continued to make guest appearances on the soap.
Allison Mills, also known as Alley Bean, is an American actress, known for her roles on television. She starred as Norma Arnold, in the coming-of-age ABC comedy series, The Wonder Years (1988–1993). In 2006 she began playing the role of Pamela Douglas, the sister of the late Forrester matriarch Stephanie Forrester, on the CBS soap operaThe Bold and the Beautiful. From 2022 to 2024, Mills also portrayed antagonistic Heather Webber on the ABC soap opera, General Hospital, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series.
Georgie Jones is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. She is the daughter of supercouple Frisco and Felicia Jones. Previously played by various child actresses, Georgie is primarily portrayed by Lindze Letherman, who appeared from September 3, 2002 to December 18, 2007. Letherman temporarily returned in 2010, 2013, and 2018.
Frisco Jones and Felicia Cummings are fictional characters and a supercouple from the American soap opera General Hospital. Frisco has been portrayed by Jack Wagner on and off from 1984 to 1991, from 1994 to 1995, and briefly in 2013. Felicia has been portrayed by Kristina Wagner on and off from 1984 to 2005, from 2007 to 2008, and again since April 27, 2012. She was temporarily portrayed by Sandra Ferguson in 2005. Kristina and Jack Wagner were also married in real life from 1993 to 2006.
Taylor Hayes is a fictional character from the American CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. The character was created by William J. Bell and originated by Hunter Tylo during the episode dated June 6, 1990. Tylo exited the series in 1994 but returned several months later. She exited again in 1996 after being cast on Melrose Place, but returned shortly after being fired from that show for being pregnant. After Tylo grew dissatisfied with her character's direction and agreed with executive producer Bradley Bell that Taylor was "played out", the character was subsequently killed off and last appeared in October 2002. Tylo reprised Taylor as a ghost in 2004 before returning as a regular in April 2005, with the character revealed to be alive. Tylo exited The Bold and the Beautiful again in July 2013, but returned for guest appearances in 2014. She returned again from April 2018 to March 2019 on a recurring basis. The character was later recast with Krista Allen, who appeared as Taylor from December 2021 to November 2023.
"All I Need" is a song by American actor and singer Jack Wagner. The song was released in 1984 from his debut album with the same name.
Scott Thompson Baker is an American television actor, from Golden Valley, Minnesota. Some of his most notable roles are Colton Shore on General Hospital, Craig Lawson on All My Children, and Connor Davis on The Bold and the Beautiful.
The Scorpio and Jones families are fictional families on the American soap opera General Hospital, which is set in the fictional town of Port Charles, New York. Over time, the two families intertwined and became one large blended family, often referred to as the Scorpio/Jones family. The Scorpio family was introduced in December 1980 by head writers Pat Falken Smith and Margaret DePriest, when Robert Scorpio arrived in town to assist Luke Spencer in locating a rare diamond called the Ice Princess. Four years later, the Jones family was introduced in 1984 by Gloria Monty when Frisco Jones arrived in town after he is hired to be the lead singer for "Blackie and the Riff Raff". The Scorpio and Jones families are known for their many adventures, with members of both families working as secret agents with the fictional World Security Bureau (WSB).
The first season of Melrose Place, an American television series, premiered on Fox on July 8, 1992. The season one finale aired on May 26, 1993, after 32 episodes.
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