Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson)

Starr Irene Manning is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The character was originated on the now-canceled ABC soap opera One Life to Live in 1996, and has been played by actress Kristen Alderson since 1998. She is the daughter of Todd Manning and Blair Cramer; although she was raised from the age of eleven to adulthood by her uncle, Victor Lord, Jr., whom everyone (including himself) thought was Todd Manning at the time.

Background and birth
Late in 1994, convicted rapist Todd Manning meets Blair Cramer, a socialite who has a history of being a gold digger. The two bond and have a one-night stand around Christmastime. Blair then finds out that Todd is the long-lost son of the deceased Victor Lord, and is set to inherit $27.8 million, a fact that Todd himself doesn't know. In January of 1995, Blair lies to Todd and tells him she's pregnant with his child, and the two are married. After they are married, Todd finds out he is the Lord heir and inherits the money, and tabloid newspaper The Intruder, which he renames The Sun. Although the marriage started out as a sham, Todd and Blair fall in love and she quickly becomes pregnant for real, but then miscarries. Soon afterward, they decide to try for another baby. However, Todd finds out that Blair had initially lied to him and was not actually pregnant when they got married. Todd has their marriage annulled based on fraud, but Blair finds out that she is pregnant again with Todd's child. The two later remarry; but shortly thereafter, Todd is shot while in Ireland and presumed dead. Starr is born onscreen on January 8, 1996; then Todd returns to town a few months later, and meets his daughter for the first time.

Childhood
Starr has a history of working schemes with and without her father Todd, getting in trouble, and lying. She has run away from home, stolen money from Todd, and stolen credit cards from both her mother's ex-boyfriend Max Holden, and her cousin Cassie Callison. In 2003, Todd is once again presumed dead, and Blair sends Starr, now 11, and her baby brother Jack to live with Cassie in Atlanta. Starr steals Cassie's credit card and buys a plane ticket back home to Llanview, PA. When she arrives, she meets a man going by the name of Walker Laurence, whom Starr later figures out is actually her father Todd, with a new face. It wouldn't be for another eight years, though, that they find out that he is not actually Todd; but his twin brother Victor, who has been brainwashed into thinking he's Todd. Not knowing that Walker believes he is actually Todd, Blair falls for him and the two are married. Starr, however, keeps Walker's secret and never tells her mother that he is Todd. When Blair finds out, she has their marriage annulled.

Blair then falsely accuses Todd of raping her and he's sent to prison. Starr decides to break him out. She and her friend Matthew Buchanan manage to find the prison van transporting Todd and flag it down. They get the door open and try to get Todd to escape. He refuses, but another prisoner does escape and takes Matthew hostage. Starr is sentenced to probation and community service at the hospital for her crime. While working at the hospital, Starr vandalizes hospital property. Blair later exonerates Todd, saying he did not rape her after all, and he's released.

Starr meets a boy named Travis O'Connell over the internet and starts chatting with him. She tricks Blair into taking her to New York to meet him, and once there, runs away with him. Later, Travis moves to Llanview. Todd and his nephew Kevin Buchanan, who's only eight months younger than Todd, reignite their life-long feud. Starr and Travis hack into the computer database of The Banner, the newspaper of Kevin's mother and Todd's sister Viki, and print malicious material about Kevin. Starr and Travis later share their first kiss, but their relationship ends when Travis has to go back to New York.

Teenage pregnancy
Starr later meets Cole Thornhart, the son of Marty Saybrooke, whom her father Todd had notoriously orchestrated and participated in the gang raped of in college; and Patrick Thornhart, whom her mother Blair had dated and had a stillborn son with when Starr was a baby. Cole is a star football player at the high school and begins using steroids. At a party, Cole is slipped drugs and becomes high, then attacks Starr. Todd forbids Starr from seeing Cole, but they refuse and attempt to run away together.

In 2008, Todd fears for his family's safety and decides to move them to Hawaii. Fearing they'd never see each other again, Starr and Cole sleep together for the first time. Todd walks in on them and beats Cole nearly to death before Blair stops it. Todd again forbids Starr from ever seeing Cole again, even though Starr assures him that they didn't have sex, which is a lie. Todd even withdraws Starr from school and decides to have her home schooled to keep her from seeing Cole. Later, Starr finds out she is pregnant, but doesn't tell anyone except her best friend Langston, whom her great-aunt Dorian is fostering. Todd then starts to trust Starr more and puts her back in school, making her promise she'll stay away from Cole, which she does for a while, partly because she doesn't want to tell him she is pregnant.

Starr decides to have an abortion because she never wants her father to find out about the pregnancy. She makes it all the way to the clinic and into the room where it is to be done; but when Cole asks Langston where Starr is, she gives him the address where he can find her. Still not knowing she is pregnant or that she is about to have an abortion, Cole goes to Starr, where he finally finds out the truth. He then convinces her to not go through with the abortion. Instead, Cole arranges for them to get fake IDs and they run away together to Virginia Beach to raise the baby.

Todd and Blair eventually track them down though. Todd goes after Cole, and in the struggle, Starr ends up falling down a flight of stairs. At the hospital, Blair is in the room when the doctor tells Starr that she and the baby are going to be just fine. Blair is shocked to find out her 16 year old daughter is pregnant, but agrees it's best not to tell Todd. By this point, Todd and Blair have broken up again, and Blair shuts Todd out of his children's lives again. She goes as far as getting a restraining order against him.

Starr decides to give her baby up for adoption, which Cole does not agree with. He even talks to an attorney about his legal rights and considers suing Starr for custody. Starr decides to let Marcie and Michael McBain, the brother of police detective John McBain, adopt her baby. In 2006, Todd had had a son with a woman named Margaret Cochran who had shot and kidnapped him, then tied him to a bed and raped him. The baby was kidnapped at birth and sold on the black market, and the McBains had ended up adopting him. When it was revealed that he was illegally adopted, Todd got his son back and renamed him Sam. Starr felt sorry for the McBains because they loved Tommy, as they had called their adopted son, and were heartbroken when they lost him to Todd. Starr feels that Marcie was a great mother and wants to give her a baby.

Todd finds out that Starr is pregnant when Cole tells him, knowing that Todd won't allow the McBains to adopt his grandchild. Todd hates the McBains because they had kept his son from him, and Marcie had kidnapped Sam when she didn't want to give him up. Cole tells Todd about the adoption plan, which infuriates Todd. There is no way he's going to let the people who kidnapped his son raise his grandchild. Todd comes up with a plan to kidnap the baby from the hospital and then run away and raise him or her. Cole's mother Marty is presumed dead, but is actually alive. Todd has been secretly holding an amnesiac Marty captive in his home. He has been lying to her and does not tell her that she has a son, or that he believes he's Todd Manning, the man who raped her in college. She falls in love with him, and Todd tells her that his daughter, who's pregnant, has agreed to let him raise her baby. Todd asks Marty to go away with him and help him raise the baby, which she agrees to. Actually, Todd pays off Starr's obstetrician and her nurse to help him kidnap the baby and make Starr believe that the baby is dead.

Birth and "death"
A healthy baby girl, whom Marcie names Hope Manning McBain, is born onscreen on November 6, 2008. Marcie and Blair are in the delivery room with Starr; and none of them are allowed to see the baby, who's whisked away by medical staff. They are told that she is going to the NICU and that none of them can go with her. The baby is actually not going to the NICU, though. Instead, Todd has instructed the doctor to take her to her office, where he plans to abduct her. Todd secretly arrives at the hospital to put his plan into motion, but has a change of heart and decides not to kidnap his granddaughter. Therefore, the doctor goes to get Hope from her office to give to Starr and Marcie, but when she gets there, the baby in the bassinet is dead. The doctor's bewildered because Hope was born alive and well and was seemingly healthy when she left her in her office. To make matters even stranger, an autopsy shows that the cause of death is Rh disease, which almost never occurs in first pregnancies, so the doctor hadn't even tested for it. The doctor painstakingly tells Starr, Marcie, and Blair the news and that Rh disease usually doesn't even occur until the mother's third pregnancy. Starr gets a locket of the baby's hair, and the baby is buried.

What had actually happened is that Todd's niece Jessica Brennan had given birth to her third child, Chloe, alone at a cabin at the same time. Chloe was stillborn; and when Jessica, who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (or multiple personalities), noticed that her baby was dead, she had a relapse. Her alter Bess took over and drove to the hospital; then switched the two babies to protect Jessica from the anguish of losing her child, whose father had died before the baby was born.

Todd's trials and dealing with loss
Marty is then rescued by John McBain from Todd's house and Starr and Cole find out about Todd's plan to kidnap their baby. Starr accuses Todd of killing her baby, saying that if he hadn't instructed the doctor to take the baby to her office that the baby would have been getting proper medical care and might have survived. Todd is tried for a laundry list of crimes while holding Marty captive, but is found completely innocent. At hearing the verdict, Starr stands up in the court room and tells the judge about Todd's plan to kidnap her baby, who ended up dying. Todd is distraught over feeling responsible for his granddaughter's death and Marty, whom he's fallen in love and become obsessed with, rejecting him. At Marty's urging, Todd steps off the roof of a hotel in a suicide attempt, only to fall into the river below, where Blair and Todd's attorney Téa Delgado rescue him. Téa tells Starr of Todd's suicide attempt, and when she testifies at Todd's attempted kidnapping trial, she changes her story and says that Todd had not planned to kidnap her baby, exonerating him.

Cole and Starr both become distraught after this ordeal. Cole turns to drugs, while Starr turns to her teacher Schuyler Joplin, who happens to be the son of her obstetrician whom Todd hired to help kidnap Hope. Dr. Joplin had committed suicide because she felt responsible for Hope's death. On one occasion, Starr kisses Schuyler, just as Cole walks in and sees it. Schuyler gets suspended indefinitely for the incident, and Starr pines for him. One day, she goes over to his apartment and finds him wearing only a towel. He tells her to leave, but Starr starts taking her clothes off, trying to seduce him. Schuyler rejects her though, and Starr leaves, devastated.

Getting to the truth
Starr and Cole get back together, and months after the death of their daughter, clues start piling up that something was not right about Hope's death. Marcie finds out that Cole's blood type is actually compatible with Starr's, so there's no way that their baby died of Rh disease. They then have a DNA test done on the hair in Starr's locket, which is supposedly from their baby, and find out that it's not from their daughter. When Starr and Cole realize this, they decide to have Hope's body exhumed to get answers. After tests, it's confirmed that the baby in the grave is not their biological daughter. The funeral home tells them that no other babies were buried at the same time, so there's no way it could have been switched when buried. Starr and Cole are bewildered at what could have happened, and are hopeful that their daughter might be alive.

Meanwhile, Jessica's sister Natalie Buchanan and her fiance Jared Banks have suspicions of their own, that the baby Jessica calls Chloe is not actually her daughter. They piece together that Chloe might actually be Hope, and that Jessica's alter Bess switched them. They are able to secretly get DNA samples from Chloe and Jessica, and from Starr and Hope, via her hair in the locket Starr wears. They confirm what they suspected, that the baby girl Jessica is raising as Chloe Brennan, is actually Starr's daughter Hope McBain, and vice versa. Jessica does not remember switching the babies and does not know that Chloe is not actually her daughter. As time passes though, she starts remembering bits and pieces. Natalie and Jared decide to keep what they know secret to protect Jessica. They are afraid that one of her alters will come out again if she finds out the truth. However, they eventually tell Jessica and Natalie's parents Viki Lord and Clint Buchanan, and Jared's father Charlie Banks.

Meanwhile, Powell Lord III, psychotic second cousin of both Starr and Jessica, kidnaps Todd, Marty, Blair, and Téa. Powell had gone to college with Todd, before he knew he was his cousin, and had been part of Marty's gang rape. Powell had been reluctant to participate in the rape, but cooperated at Todd's urging. He, along with Todd and the other man involved, Zach Rosen, was convicted; and then Powell went crazy. He keeps Todd strapped to a bed and Marty to a chair in a room in the same fraternity house where the rape happened years before, while he has Blair and Téa elsewhere in the frat house. Powell's accomplice, Rebecca Lewis, finds out that Jessica's baby is actually Starr and Cole's baby, making her both Todd and Marty's granddaughter. Rebecca kidnaps her and takes her to Powell. Todd doesn't understand why Powell has his sister Viki's granddaughter Chloe there; but Powell explains that she's not his sister's granddaughter, she's his granddaughter. Marty is able to convince Powell to give the baby to her, then John McBain rescues them, killing Powell. Todd and Marty take the baby to the hospital, while John rescues Blair and Téa.

"Bess" kidnaps "Chloe"
At the hospital, Todd and Marty meet up with Viki and Clint, who are there because Jessica had been brought in when she had a breakdown after remembering switching the babies, which she doesn't disclose to anyone. Both Todd and Marty and Viki and Clint realize that the others know that Chloe is actually Hope. They decide not to tell Jessica right away, not knowing that she has remembered. Jessica turns into her alter Bess again though, and kidnaps the baby. Todd then tells Blair the truth.

Starr reads on the internet that there's an Amber Alert out for Jessica and Chloe and wonders why no one told her that her cousins were missing. She also doesn't understand why it's being considered a kidnapping since Chloe is Jessica's own daughter. Blair decides it's time to tell her the truth and gathers Todd, Marty, and Cole at the house to tell them. Meanwhile, John McBain goes to his brother Michael and his wife Marcie to tell them the truth.

Happy reunion
Jessica and Chloe are eventually found and brought back to Llanview. Jessica is herself again and realizes she has to give the baby up. Todd and Blair go to get the baby from Jessica and bring her to Starr and Cole. Then, Michael and Marcie come and take Hope from Starr and Cole. Starr and Cole have both changed their minds about giving Hope up, but neither will admit it to the other. Starr doesn't want to go back on her promise to Marcie, and Cole doesn't want to go against Starr, who he thinks is still okay with the adoption. Eventually, Marcie realizes that Starr wants her baby back and she and Michael decide to return Hope to Starr and Cole. Marcie hands Hope back over to Starr on June 15, 2009. Starr then changes the baby's name from Hope Manning McBain to Hope Manning-Thornhart.