Roger Howarth, the Emmy award-winning actor who most recently portrayed the contract role of Dr. Austin Gatlin-Holt on “General Hospital,” is joining the cast of “The Young and the Restless” for a “mystery role” that will bring him to Genoa City later this year.
According to Deadline, which first reported the news, Howarthworth is set to begin taping episodes in mid-September at the Television City studio, where the soap opera is based in Hollywood, with his first scenes set to air in the fall.
After the news broke, Howarth took to Instagram on Thursday, posting, “Excited and appreciative… I’m a lucky guy…,” while including a photo of himself that has him crossing his fingers. The letters “R” and “Y” were inserted into the image, though their meaning wasn’t explicitly clear; their intent is likely as a reverse “Y&R.”
@therealrogerhowarth/Instagram
Howarth first joined the cast of “General Hospital” in March 2012 when he took his iconic “One Life to Live” character, Todd Manning, from Llanview to Port Charles. Following a dispute between ABC and Prospect Park Networks (“PPN”), which at the time had licensed the “One Life to Live” characters in the hopes of launching an online reboot of the soap opera along with sister soap “All My Children,” ABC was forced to create new characters for Howarth and other actors who had migrated to the long-running soap opera.
By February 2013, plans for the online reboot were taking shape, and in March 2013, Todd, Starr Manning (Kirsten Alderson) and John McBain (Michael Easton) seemingly disappeared from Port Charles overnight due to the dispute between ABC and PPN. In May 2013, Howarth took over the role of Franco Baldwin, a character first created by actor James Franco in 2009 as part of an exhibit he was working on for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), who at the time was a crazy art dealer that terrorized Port Charles until he was later redeemed via an excuse of having a brain tumor when Howarth stepped into the role.
After Franco was killed off in 2021, the show decided to keep Howarth as part of the cast by having him portray the newly created role of Dr. Austin Gatlin-Holt, who was part of the Quartermaine family through his parents, Jimmy Lee Holt and Charity Gatlin, with his paternal grandparents being George and Ida Quartermaine. Austin was killed off in the Friday, November 17, 2023 episode of “General Hospital” when the character was shot in a cliffhanger that went unsolved for more than a year, with it finally being revealed earlier this year that Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober) killed him.
“Still life with coffee and rabbit ears. Three things that I know for sure…,” Howarth noted in an Instagram post at the time, confirming his exit from “General Hospital” while revealing the network reportedly declined to offer him a new contract, with his exit “storyline-dictated.”
“Daytime fans are lovely and amazing and supportive and dedicated and I am deeply grateful to each sparkly one of them,” said Howarth in the first bullet point of three. “I enjoyed my time at ‘General Hospital’ and wish the cast and crew the best and continued success. It was a pleasure working with you all,” he added in bullet two, and finally, for bullet three, he said, “Life is amazing. We just don’t Ever know what’s gonna happen. How great!”
The third point was proven true on Thursday as the actor had not expected to see himself back in daytime, what with just four soaps on the air at the time he made the statement – there are now five soap operas as of 2025 with the addition of “Beyond the Gates.”
Howarth’s casting at “The Young and the Restless” marks a return for the actor to CBS, where he spent nearly a decade portraying Paul Ryan on “As The World Turns” and previously portrayed the short-term role of Jory on “Guiding Light” in 1992.
Following the soap’s cancellation in 2010, Howarth returned to “One Life to Live” to reprise the role of Todd Manning, where he previously appeared off and on from 1993-2003. In 1994, Howarth won his first Emmy award for his portrayal of the Lord heir, taking home the golden statue in the category of Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series. He received his second nomination in 1995, this time in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category. During his run on “As The World Turns,” Howarth received two additional Emmy nominations, this time in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series category (2004, 2005).
Howarth first made a name for himself in daytime when he made his debut as Kent Winslow on “Loving.” His other credits include appearances in episodes of “Diagnosis Murder,” “Prey,” “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Flash,” among others.
The news of Howarth’s casting comes just days after the soap opera announced that Tamara Braun (“General Hospital,” “Days of our Lives”) would also be joining the series, playing the role of Sienna Bacall, who is said to have “personal connections to several characters” in Genoa City.
