Lulu Spencer-Falconeri (Emme Rylan)

Lesley Lu "Lulu" Spencer-Falconeri (née Spencer) is a fictional character (born on-screen August 8, 1994) on the ABC soap opera, General Hospital. She is the daughter of legendary supercouple Luke and Laura Spencer. She has notably been portrayed by Julie Marie Berman from November 2005-March 2013. On March 6, 2013, it was announced that Emme Rylan was cast as Berman's replacement.

Infancy
Lesley Lu is named "Lesley" after her maternal grandmother Dr. Lesley Webber and "Lu" after an alias her mother had assumed while she and Luke were on the run from Frank Smith. The family settles on calling her Lulu. Her parents are legendary supercouple Luke and Laura Spencer, and she was born during a happy period in their marriage, when they had settled in Port Charles after more than a decade on the run with their first child, Lucky. Due to Luke's association with mob boss Sonny Corinthos, Lulu's infancy is plagued by danger, with her mother fleeing town with her at one point. As an infant, Lulu is diagnosed with aplastic anemia, forcing Laura to reveal the existence of another son, Nikolas Cassadine, born during her captivity with Stavros Cassadine. Nikolas saves Lulu's life with a bone marrow transplant, but Luke and Laura's marriage is destroyed by the revelation of this secret. Lulu is primarily raised by her mother after the divorce, though the family eventually reconciles and Luke and Laura plan to remarry. After Laura's appears to murder her stepfather Rick Webber, she enters into a catatonic state, and Lulu is raised by her grandmother Lesley. Lulu is then "diagnosed" with Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, and is aged to 17 in November 2005. In February 2006, Lulu is one of the residents who had been victimized by encephalitis, causing her to be hospitalized.

Arrival
Lulu proves to be too much for her grandmother to handle, and Lesley forces Luke to take a more active role in his daughter's life. Lulu moves into the Quartermaine mansion with Luke and her new stepmother, Tracy Quartermaine. Resentful at Luke's absence in her life, Lulu continues to rebel by "borrowing" the family cars and stealing money from Tracy. After she graduates, Lulu and Diego Alcazar scheme to break up Dillon Quartermaine, her stepbrother, and his wife Georgie Jones. After lying about Georgie and Diego having sex, Lulu loses her virginity to Dillon and becomes pregnant. Dillon discovers both her deception and the pregnancy, while Lulu decides to abort the fetus. Despite legal challenges from the Quartermaines, Lulu eventually goes through with the abortion.

In November 2006, just in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of her first wedding to Luke, Laura awakes from her catatonic state with the help of Dr. Robin Scorpio and Dr. Patrick Drake. Luke and Laura renew their wedding vows in a fake ceremony, as Luke knows that she will return to her catatonic state after several weeks and he is unwilling to divorce Tracy. Flooded with guilt about her abortion, Lulu confides in her mother about not wanting to bring a baby into a world where it wasn't loved or wanted, much like Lulu felt growing up without her. After assuring Lulu that she was both loved and wanted, Laura reveals that she doesn't believe she killed Rick Webber and returns to catatonia. Lulu becomes involved in Port Charles' mob community, helping mob boss Sonny Corinthos and his partner Jason Morgan track down teenage hacker Damian Spinelli, who had worked for rival Lorenzo Alcazar. With Dillon's help, Lulu begins to investigate Rick's murder in the hope of clearing Laura's name.

Former Port Charles resident Jerry Jacks, disguised through plastic surgery as James Craig, takes several people hostage in the Metro Court hotel with the aide of several mercenaries. Craig locks Lulu into a room with Alan Quartermaine, and Lulu questions him about his role in Rick's death as all of her evidence points to Alan and his wife Monica Quartermaine as being involved. Alan reveals that he knows who the real killer is, but dies from complications due to a heart attack before he can tells Lulu who the real murderer is. Lulu manages to escape from the Metro Court after a bomb destroys the hotel lobby. She intercepts a letter from Alan to her father that reveals Scott Baldwin, Laura's first husband and a longtime rival of Luke, had actually murdered Rick. Fearing the news would destroy her father and that he would kill Scott, Lulu decides to keep the information between her and Dillon.

Spinelli develops feelings for Lulu, and through their friendship Lulu discovers that Lucky's son Jake with wife Elizabeth was actually fathered by Jason Morgan. Lulu decides to keep this information from her brother, who she fears would suffer a relapse of his addiction to pills. Soon, Lulu is pursued by Spinelli, Milo Giambetti, and Dillon, who she all rejects after being involved with Logan Hayes. She also forgave Elizabeth for lying about Jake's paternity, when she learns of Elizabeth's rape. This was due to her discovering her father Luke raping her mother Laura in 1984. Maxie Jones soon decides to break up Lulu and Logan due to Lulu's involvement in breaking up Dillon and his then-wife, Georgie. After the encounter, Logan discovers he loved Lulu. Lulu consummated her relationship with Logan and they move in together leading a jealous Maxie to reveal her trysts with Logan, to Lulu.

Johnny Zacchara
Devastated, Lulu runs off and accepts a ride from stranger, who turns out to be Johnny Zacchara, son of insane mob boss Anthony Zacchara. At the same time, Port Charles is being terrorized by the "Text Message Killer," a serial killer who terrorized the town from September 2007 to April 2008. Anthony disapproves of the relationship but he is later incarcerated and is institutionalized. With Anthony gone, Johnny and Lulu begin a relationship but soon, Johnny's sister and Sonny's wife, Claudia Corinthos arrives in town and causes friction between the duo. Georgie Jones is soon murdered by the Text Message Killer, soon believed to be Logan. Soon after, Lulu and Johnny consummate their relationship on the Haunted Star. Several residents of Port Charles are injured when Lulu's old friend Diego Alcazar, who is the Text Message Killer, blows up the cannery. As a favor to her cousin Carly Jacks, Lulu begins to work as an assistant to Kate Howard, who is launching a magazine with Jasper Jacks. Lulu also discovers that Maxie is an assistant for Kate. Soon, An increasingly unstable Logan cannot accept that his relationship with Lulu is over, and attempts to blame Maxie for their breakup, leading him to assault her with Lulu secretly watching. Logan goes after Lulu, who stabs him in self-defense, killing him in the process. Johnny and Maxie come to her aid, with Johnny telling his sister that he was responsible for stabbing Logan. The four begin to cover up the crime, though Johnny is eventually arrested. Johnny is later acquitted of all charges although Lulu suffers a mental breakdown, which leads to her mother coming to her aid. After Laura reconciles with Luke, she moves to France to continue her treatment.

Despite blaming each other for ending their siblings marriages, Lulu and Maxie began to form a friendship because of the events surrounding Logan's death. The two decide to move in together, though their truce is strained when Johnny breaks all ties with his family and Lulu moves him into their apartment as well. Carly decides to hold a benefit to help fund research on traumatic brain injuries involving children, causing Johnny to feel guilt over his role in Michael's coma. That, coupled with his inability to find work because of his mafia ties, strain their relationship, forcing Lulu to attend the event alone. While at the benefit, which is hosted at General Hospital's boardroom, several guests and staff members are incapacitated by a biotoxin. Lulu agrees to help Epiphany Johnson with hospital duties, but most of her efforts involve helping Spinelli and waiting to hear from Johnny. During the evacuation, she refuses to leave her "stepmonster" Tracy's side until she's evacuated, leading to a closer relationship between them.

Dante Falconeri
Soon after, Johnny and Maxie begin to attend public affairs as a publicity stunt for Kate. Lulu breaks up with Johnny after discovering that he cheated on her with Maxie, putting a strain on her friendship. Lulu also discovers that Ethan Lovett is her half-brother, via Luke and Holly. Lulu soon becomes flirtatious with mobster Dominic Pirelli, much to Ethan and Lucky's dismay. They get into a bar fight with him leaving Dominic pretty banged up. Out of guilt Lulu takes him to GH for treatment and he continues to flirt with her. At the same time, Dr. Matt Hunter takes an interest in Lulu when she accidentally glues her hand to her head. When she sees Dominic at the Haunted Star Casino she helps him out before Ethan can cheat him out of his money. Dominic drops the macho act and thanks her, and the two end up in a lip lock. They would later attend the GH Carnival together where Dominic is hit by a speeding car. When he is in the hospital, Lulu discovers a police badge, and Dominic covers by saying that he stole it.

Dominic keeps pursuing her, even though she tries to keep herself at a distance. Nonetheless, his humoring ways of trying to win him over slowly grow on her. One night, she ends up at the dock where Dominic is talking to a friend, and she overhears him calling Dominic "Officer Falconeri." Dominic, lucky for him, realizes that she's actually drugged and takes her home to sleep off the side effects. In the morning, she does not seem to remember the conversation. When Lulu's cousin, Carly, is kidnapped, she and Dominic go off in search of her at the old Zacchara mansion, where they run into Johnny. Lulu ends up seriously hurt when she falls through a floor, and while waiting for Johnny and the paramedics to arrive, Lulu tells Dominic she remembers him being called Officer Falconeri. Dominic admits he's really Dante Falconeri, Olivia's son. She passes out, but when she wakes up in the hospital, she tells Dante that she's not happy about keeping this secret since Sonny is her father's friend. Lulu is at an impasse on what to do about Dante. She goes to Olivia, asking her for help, but Olivia tells her she can't do anything. Dante ends up taking Lulu to the opera, where she finds herself realizing that she is slowly developing feelings for Dante. Lucky eventually finds out the truth about Dante, as well. On January 6, 2010, Lulu is kidnapped by Franco, an artist who is obsessed with Jason. Luckily, Dante reaches her right before the bomb detonates, and they both survive. Dante decides to break up with Lulu, and she's heartbroken. She later admits to Maxie that she's falling in love with him. When she comes across Dante the next day, he tells her he broke up with her to protect her from his dangerous lifestyle. She retorts, saying she gets to decide whether or not she's safe with him, and whether or not their relationship, indicating she's not letting go of him yet. The two profess their love and attempt to sleep together.

Lulu attends Josslyn Jacks's baptism on January 29, 2010, acting as Josslyn's godmother. Lulu is worried when Dante does not show up at the christening, and goes to Sonny's house, looking for him, where she encounters a bloody mess where Dante was shot by Sonny before being transported to the hospital. At the hospital, unknown to Lulu, while Dante is drifting in and out of consciousness, he tries to convey a message to Olivia to tell Lulu that he loves her, but becomes unconscious before he can complete the statement. Sonny is put on trial for Claudia's murder.

In April 2010, Dante finds out Michael's wherabouts and brings him home to Port Charles where Michael tells Lulu and Dante that he killed Claudia. After Dante reveals this to the courts, Sonny is exonerated and Michael is arrested and later sentenced to five years in prison. Carly finds out Lulu was involved in this and rips in to her. Carly hires Brook Lynn Ashton to seduce Dante so that him and Lulu will break up. Carly and Brook's plan works when Brook drugs Dante's beer and seduces him at his home. Lulu walks in and gets in a physical fight with Brook. Lulu at first is mad at Dante, but then fiqures out he was drugged. Dante and Lulu end ties with Brook, however she starts working for Nikolas. Brook leaves town soon after.

In October 2010, Brenda Barrett returns to Port Charles. Through a series of flashbacks it is revealed Dante worked on a security detail for the supermodel in 2007. However, the pair refrain from telling anybody. It is revealed Dante covered up a murder for Brenda. In addition, Carly finds a document which indicates Dante signed away his parental rights to his and Brenda's child. She ssumes the two had an affair. In private, Brenda tells Dante she miscarried the baby. However, Dante tells Lulu he had never met Brenda. When Lulu caught Dante in the lie, he changed his story. He barely knew her, and didn't think she would remember him. On January 18, 2011, Lulu breaks up with Dante when she finds out about the murder he helped Brenda cover up in 2007. However, Dante is determined to win Lulu back, and the breakup makes him realize what he had with Brenda was just a crush. What he has with Lulu is real. During Brenda's wedding to Sonny (with Dante serving as the best man) Brenda objected to her own wedding to tell Sonny the truth about her baby. Dante stepped up and revealed, although he signed away his parental rights, the child was not actually his. Lulu leaves the wedding, visibly upset. Dante follows her to her apartment where he tells her he will not give up on their relationship.

Soon after Dante and Lulu get back, Jake is killed in a hit-and-run accident. It is then learned Luke was the driver that killed Jake. He feels very guilty espically since everyone think he's an acoholic. Luke then tries to burn down the Haunted Star and tires to get Jason to kill him. However, Luke argees to go to rehab, but when Lulu went to visit him it was learned he left 15 minutes after checking himself in. Lulu is the only one in her family who believes he will return.

Search for Luke
Lucky tracks down Luke to the Florida were he was raised at, but Luke cruelly rejects him. When Lucky returns to Port Charles and reports this to his family, Lulu begins to give up hope that she will reunite with her father. Yet when Lucky burns down the Spencer home that Lulu was raised in, she decides that she must retrieve her father herself, for Lucky's sake, and departs for Florida.

By the time Lulu arrives at the brothel, Luke has apparently left. Posing as his former business associate, Lulu questions the dangerous brothel manager Javier and a prosititute named Lupe. The two hint that Luke might return, so Lulu takes a job as a cocktail waitress in the brothel with hopes to reunite with him soon. Dante follows her and pretends to be john, then accepts a job from Javier as a bouncer. Soon Javier learns of the pair's deceit, and kills Lupe when he believes she is giving them information. Javier has his thugs beat and tie up Dante while he tries to rape Lulu, but Dante escapes and saves her, overpowering Javier. At gunpoint, Javier confesses that he knows Luke is somewhere doing business with his old nemesis, Nikolas' grandmother Helena Cassadine.

Lulu and Dante then leave the brothel and travel to Greece to find Luke and Helena. Dante tries to pose as an applicant to join Helena's private security firm, but Helena quickly sees right through their act and the three end up in a heated conversation. The confrontation is cut short when Nikolas, who had left Port Charles months earlier after finding out that Aiden was not his son, arrives, diffuses the situation and wants to speak with Lulu alone. Nikolas is able to convince Lulu to give up her search for Luke and return home and shortly thereafter she and Dante leave for Port Charles. When they return home, Lulu lets Lucky know that she had given up her search. Unbeknownst to her, Lucky was getting involved in a drug case which could be dangerous since he was previously addicted to drugs and Dante knew but kept it from Lulu at Elizabeth's request.

Relationship problems
Lucky and Dante argue over keeping the truth from Lulu. Dante wanted to tell her the truth, but Lucky was trying to convince him to wait. The decision was taken out of their hands when Lulu overhears the two talking. Angry that Dante kept the truth from her, she breaks up with him. Dante pleads with Lulu to take him back. Lulu asks him if he would lie to her about Lucky again and Dante replies he would in order to keep Lucky safe, causing Lulu to leave Dante. Lulu's step-mother Tracy tried to convince Lulu to take Dante back because he is a good guy and only lied to protect Lucky. Lulu then goes to Crimson to help Sam pick out a wedding dress for her upcoming wedding. Little did she know that Dante had been in the other room talking to Olivia about her. Lulu holds a wedding dress up to herself, imagining what it would look like on her, when Dante walks in. They have a conversation about their relationship but Dante must leave for police business.

Despite not being on the best of terms, Dante decides to propose to Lulu. He tells his mom and together they set up a romantic rooftop dinner on top of the Metro Court for Lulu. Meanwhile, Lulu asks Ethan to help her run away for a little while. However, Ethan tells Dante that Lulu has plans to leave, and Dante finds her at the Haunted Star and asks her to come with him. He takes Lulu to the rooftop and begins to propose, however Lulu talks over him and tells him that she can't trust him anymore. Dante then says "Dammit, Lulu. Will you just shut up and marry me?". Lulu hesitates and is not able to give Dante an answer at the time. Later after thinking it over, she decides that she does want to marry him and she sets up another romantic dinner for them so she could give Dante her answer. Unfortunately, Dante never made it to the dinner because he was shot in the chest while in the line of duty at one of Sonny's warehouses. Lulu is by his side in the hospital as he recovers and tells him that she accepts his marriage proposal.

After Dante is released from the hospital, Lulu begins worrying about his line of work and how life would be as a cop's wife with a husband who has such a dangerous job. Her worries cause her to develop a drinking problem. She becomes so worried about him that she even breaks off the engagement but later changes her mind and proposes to him and he says yes.

Marriage to Dante and new career
Lulu and Dante go on a trip to Brooklyn and on December 23, they were married in a small ceremony in Bensonhurst by Dante's cousin Tommy. Only Olivia was present at the ceremony, but at the end of the ceremony, the rest of Falconeri family Dante's family came in to celebrate Lulu and Dante's union. Dante and Lulu seem relatively happy as husband and wife in Port Charles. However, after quitting Crimson, abandoning the Haunted Star and vowing to no longer devote herself to healing the Spencers, Lulu suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. She can't find a job or a hobby that she's interested in, and begins drinking wine more frequently. Olivia and Maxie both notice this and warn Lulu about it, but Lulu dismisses them. After a reconciliation with Luke, Lulu seems to have gotten her drinking under control and finally gets a job maintaining the evidence locker at the police station.

At her new job, Lulu becomes involved in a case involving a mysterious attacker of dancers from Vaughn's, the local strip club owned by Johnny. The muggings continue for months without any real leads as to the identity of the attacker. When evidence in the case is erased from Dante's computer before Lulu can process them, she shares her suspicions with Dante that his new partner Delores Padilla is responsible for tampering with the evidence that might link her husband Eddie Cabrera to the attacks. Photos of the attacked dancers are soon found in Eddie and Dolores' home, and Eddie is arrested. However, after witnessing Delores and Eddie together at the station, she begins to think that Eddie might be innocent and shifts her attention towards the true attacker, Dante's longtime police friend Ronnie Dimestico. Her instinct prove right when she finds that Ronnie has no alibi for the night of every single one of the attacks. She also correctly surmises that Ronnie deleted the photos from Dante's phone and planted evidence to implicate Eddie. Unsure of how to proceed with this information, Lulu seeks council from Luke. Her father advises her to go directly to Dante. Before she can do so, however, Ronnie (who now knows Lulu is on to him) kidnaps her. A frantic Dante catches up with Luke and confronts Ronnie, but Ronnie is able to frame Dante for corruption and for the attacks on the strippers.

Dante manages to convince Delores to get him out of lock-up and he goes after Lulu and a pregnant Sam Morgan, who had both been taken by Ronnie. Dante teams up with John McBain and together the two are able to stop Ronnie and rescue the women. After the event, Lulu admitted to Luke that the whole situation made her feel alive and really tap into her adventure Spencer genes. As a result of this, she was thinking of making a career change.

In 2012, Johnny decides to abandon Vaughn's and begin a legitimate nightclub known as The Haunted Star. He enlists Lulu to help him by using one of Luke's old boats. Much to the initial chagrin of her husband Dante, Lulu accepts Johnny's offer and becomes co-owner of The Haunted Star. Lulu eventually convinces Dante in June 2012 that she can continue to work with him at the station by day and help Johnny run the club by night. In late June 2012, The Haunted Star opens as a smash success. Dante does not make it to the club's opening. At the end of the night, Lulu, who has been helping Maxie Jones look after a drug addicted Patrick Drake, finds a hallucinating Patrick on the deck of the Haunted Star. Patrick, who was hallucinating images of a supposedly dead Robin Scorpio-Drake, hallucinated that Lulu was Robin and kissed her.

Road to motherhood
Lulu's father was kidnapped and held captive by a delusional Heather Webber in June 2012 and was later shot in the crossfire between Heather and Luke's roommate, police chief Anna Devane. While away from Luke for a brief time, Heather also drugged Lulu's mother-in-law, Olivia Falconeri with LSD on July 23, placing her in the hospital. After the dust settles, the two go home and have a serious talk about their marriage and come to the conclusion that everything is fine.

Although Olivia hallucinated Lulu being heavily pregnant, Lulu was seen apparently visably ill to the point of vomiting at the end of the August 8, 2012 episode. On August 9, 2012, it was revealed that Maxie Hunter had seen Lulu vomit and wondered if she might really be pregnant. Maxie urged Lulu to take a pregnancy test, the results of which are as yet unknown (as of the end of the August 9 episode). On August 10, Lulu takes a pregnancy test but doesn't reveal the results. On August 13, Dante finds the test, which is positive, but he thinks the test is Maxie's. He is shocked when he finds out Lulu, not Maxie, is pregnant. He tells her how happy he is and makes sure that she doesn't have any reservations, which she doesn't. Then the two kiss. The next morning when the couple wakes up they discuss the baby and decide to keep it between them until they know more. After they talk, Lulu makes an OB appointment for later that day. At the appointment the doctor tells Lulu that she is not pregnant, and that she may have experienced a false positive or a chemical pregnancy (a miscarriage soon after conception). The couple decide to try for a baby but they have problems conceiving.

On October 22, the couple finds out that Lulu can't carry a baby the term because she has a heart shaped or bicornuate uterus. She and Dante try the adoption route, but fail due to her lying on the application. She is now considering the idea of finding a surrogate mother. Lulu interviews many different candidates, but none of the fit her criteria. Maxie later tells Lulu that she could be their surrogate, but Lulu rejects the idea. Lulu and Dante meet with another surrogate candidate. This candidate is very harsh about the realities of surrogacy. They decide that Maxie might be the best option they have. The three of them talk and decide to move forward with Maxie as their surrogate. Soon after, Lulu gets hormone treatments and gets her eggs extracted, fertilized and then implanted. On Christmas eve, Lulu and Dante find out that Maxie is PREGNANT.

Maxie later trips and falls while trying to get the puppy from Olivia's hallucinations off her couch. She goes to the hospital and Dr. Westbourne tells her that she miscarried the baby. Maxie tried to tell Lulu and Dante about the miscarriage, but a drunken Spinelli made that impossible. Maxie and Spinelli has sex afterwards (If she somehows gets pregnant from this, Maxie might try to pretend this baby is Lulu/Dante's)

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