As this Tracy Quartermaine top moment proves, soaps often commandeer storylines from the best sources. Tracy (Jane Elliott) copies a scene from Lillian Hellman's famous play The Little Foxes when her father, Edward (Davis Lewis) says that he has removed Tracy from his will. After his announcement, which makes Tracy very unhappy, Edward grabs his chest and sinks to the ground, gasping for air and begging Tracy for his nitroglycerin. Tracy ignores him and looks out the window. "Daddy," Tracy exalts, as if he's not collapsed on the floor, "it's such a beautiful night!" Bottom line, Tracy wants back in the will.
Who else but Tracy to repeat a variation on the famous scene enacted by Bette Davis in the movie and on Broadway by such luminaries as Tallulah Bankhead and Elizabeth Taylor? The play title comes from the Bible: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines." Well, there's never been a better vine spoiler than our Tracy Quartermaine.
However, Tracy doesn't get quite the same result as Regina in the play, whose husband dies. Moments later, the viewers as well as Tracy have a shock, when Edward taps his daughter on the shoulder. He was just testing her. Depending on how you look at it, Tracy either flunked or passed.
A primo moment in General Hospital history.
