Stavros Cassadine (Robert Kelker-Kelly)

Prince Stavros Nikolas Mikkosovich Cassadine is a fictional character on the American soap opera General Hospital. John Martinuzzi originated the role in 1983, while Robert Kelker-Kelly played the evil Cassadine prince on and off from 2001 to 2003.

Storlines
In 2001, the long-running Spencer-Cassadine feud formed the basis of one of the major story arcs on General Hospital, with the character of Stavros having been recently reintroduced. A plot involving bioterrorism was beginning to unfold, with Stavros and his mother Helena as the primary antagonists. However, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the producers quickly altered the storyline, and Stavros was written out of the series.

In 1983, Stavros was originally introduced as the cousin of the late Mikkos Cassadine, who tried to freeze the world with a weather machine, but in 1996 his history was retconned so that he was the firstborn son of Mikkos and his evil wife Helena Cassadine. He abducted Laura Spencer, told her Luke Spencer was dead and persuaded her to marry him. He fathered her son Nikolas Cassadine. When Laura learned that Luke was alive, she returned to Port Charles, intending to just look at him from afar and then return to Greece. Obsessed with Laura (whom he called Lasha), Stavros followed her and was believed to have died at General Hospital shortly after falling down a flight of stairs while attempting to shoot Luke and "reclaim" his wife. However, in 2001 it was revealed that his mother Helena Cassadine had arranged to have him placed in cryonic suspension in a secret room underneath General Hospital. Stavros was revived and came back for another round of murder (Chloe Morgan, who had discovered he was not "Lucien Cane" as he'd been claiming) and mayhem before he was again presumed killed in another fight with Luke—falling into a deep shaft, laughing all the way down. After his apparent death, Stavros continued to "appear" to his son Nikolas in 2002 and in a Christmas Carol-like dream of Luke Spencer in 2003.