11th Annual Soaphunks.net Awards announced!

With six nods each, DAYS' Shawn Christian and OLTL's Mark Lawson led all nominees Wednesday as the 11th Annual Soaphunks.net Award nominations were announced live at soaphunks.net. 80 nominations were announced covering 16 categories.

Both Christian and Lawson placed in the top category, Best Hunk, along with B&B's Brandon Beemer, OLTL's David Fumero, and Y&R's Daniel Goddard.

Lawson won Best Hunk last year, while Fumero won in both 2001 & 2002. Beemer is now only the third person to be nominated for the top award in three consecutive years. This is Christian's second career Best Hunk nod, and Goddard's debut appearance here marks Y&R's first inclusion in the top category since 2005.

A total of 39 soap hunks received nominations this year, a tie for the second-most ever. With 18 nominations, OLTL led all shows for the second consecutive year, helping ABC lead the
networks with 33 nominations. CBS scored 28 nods, and NBC nabbed 19.

Other points of interest:

• The good news for CBS: B&B once again broke its own record for nominations, with nine nods spread amongst Beemer, Don Diamont (scoring his 26th career mention), Texas Battle, and Rick Hearst. Similarly, sister soap Y&R had its second-best year ever, with 14 nominations. (The CBS flagship soap received 17 nominations in 2000.)


• The bad news for CBS: ATWT posted its worst showing in six years, scoring only three nominations. What's worse: the de-hunkified sudser saw all three of those nods (Van Hansis, Billy Magnussen, & Jake Silbermann) in the Most Shamefully Clothed Category. Memo to ATWT's powers-that-be: Shirts! Off! More!

• The nominations for Murray Bartlett and Lawrence St. Victor mark the final nods for GL, bringing its series total to 28 nominations...and no wins.

• Will you guys ever give the boy a trophy? The Soaphunks.net Susan Lucci, Y&R's Thad Luckinbill, is back with two more nominations, extending his unfortunate lead in the no-wins race, with 18 career nominations but no wins.


• AMC's Cameron Mathison, suddenly finding himself eligible for Best Hunk Over 40 honors, picked up two more nominations this year, widening his lead as the most nominated soap hunk ever, with 37 career nominations.

The entire list of nominations can be streamed online, while the text version is also available. Complete year-by-year history of the awards is also available online.

As always, voting begins December 1 at soaphunks.net.

GH nabs Scott Reeves for daytime return

Woohoo! One of soaps' most stunningly handsome hunks is headed back to daytime. GH has wooed Scott Reeves (a two-time Emmy nominee) into a recurring role as a recast of Steven Lars Webber.

Reeves is, of course, best known as Y&R's Ryan McNeil, a role he left to focus full-time on his country band, Blue County. During his Y&R run, the abs-tastic Reeves scored 8 Soaphunks.net Award nominations, including one win.

Daytime's newest soap hunk: James Franco?!

Well, here's some news I wasn't expecting to be delivering today.

It's been officially announced today that A-list movie star James Franco (Spider-Man, Milk) will be joining GH in a short stint as an unnamed character. Fellow hunk and soon-to-be co-star Steve Burton has confirmed this report. Franco will play a nemesis to Burton's Jason Morgan in a (surprise!) mob storyline.

Could a Hunkiest Newcomer nomination be in order at the upcoming Soaphunks.net Awards? :)

Catch more details at Entertainment Weekly.

Unlucky: Greg Vaughan out at GH as Jackson returns

They are dropping like flies at ABC.

After both OLTL and AMC lost a top-notch hunk last week, GH was apparently next in line as Monday saw Greg Vaughan let go from the cast to accommodate the apparent return of three-time Emmy winner Jonathan Jackson to the role he created.

A transplant from Y&R, Vaughan caught on with fans a lot more than he ever did with the GH scribes. The actor toiled on the back burner for too much of his six-year run.

Vaughan scored plenty of recognition here at soaphunks.net, where he twice finished in the runner-up spot in the Adonis contest (2005 & 2008). He has received 14 Soaphunks.net Award nominations and six wins, including Best Hunk of 2005. He has won more awards at this site than any hunk in GH history, and he will be missed.

Fairman and the hunks

Why are you fooling around here when you could be reading Michael Fairman's latest soap hunk interviews?

The soap guru's most recent chats with my site's lovelies include pow-wows with OLTL's hilarious Tuc Watkins and GH's prince-a-licious Tyler Christopher. Check them out!

Sabato back to GH (kinda)

From TVGuide:

Things are about to get steamy — make that very steamy — in Port Charles. Antonio Sabato, Jr. has signed on to join General Hospital: Night Shift. SOAPnet reports Sabato — who began his acting career on daytime's GH — will reprise his role as Jagger Cates. SOAPnet recently renewed Night Shift for a second season and says Sabato will appear in all 13 episodes of the upcoming season, which kicks off next month.Jagger's return to Port Charles is sure to stir up some painful memories for Dr. Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough), who's got Dr. Patrick Drake's (Jason Thompson) baby in the oven. Jagger's brother, Stone, was her first love and his death from AIDS shattered her life. Jagger also returns with his 5-year-old son, named for his late brother.

Things are Cook-ing at GH

This just in from SOAPNet.com:

SOAPnet.com can exclusively confirm that Jason Cook is joining the cast of GH. Jason is best known as Shawn Brady, the DAYS character he played from 1999 to 2006. Shawn was one half of Shawn and Belle, known by longtime fans as "Shelle" -- the pair who put the "super" back in supercouple in fictional Salem. And just who played Belle? That's right: Kirsten Storms, aka resident GH fashionista Maxie Jones. Jason will be playing a doctor who joins the staff at Port Charles's infamous hospital; no first airdate has been set, but he'll likely start appearing in June. We CAN tell you his character will be crossing paths with Maxie very early on. Could there be a "Shelle" redux? You'll have to stay tuned for more details!

During his DAYS tenure, Cook received nine Soaphunks.net Award nominations, winning four. He also finished 10th in the Adonis 2004 contest; a June start date on GH would render him ineligible for Adonis 2008.