By 
Emmy winner Maura West is heading to General Hospital, playing the newly created role of Ava Jerome – a woman with an extremely familiar name to longtime GH viewers.
Daytime Confidential broke the story two weeks ago, reporting that the actress was slated to begin work taping her scenes this month. Soap Opera Digest exclusively revealed the name of West’s character yesterday, revealing that she should show up on screens sometime in May. West tweeted Wednesday, “I’m thrilled! Happy actress!”
Maura West starred on CBS’ As the World Turns for 15 years as troublemaker-turned-heroine Carly Tenney Snyder. There, she soared to popularly as one-half of the supercouple “CarJack” with Michael Park’s Jack Snyder. After production on ATWT ended, West was hired as the new Diane Jenkins on The Young and the Restless. Unfortunately the actress was saddled with lackluster, dreadful storylines that did more harm to the character than good, leading to West’s firing less than a year later.
We’re presuming West’s character is part of the infamous Jerome crime family, who first showed up in Port Charles way back in 1986, when patriarch Victor Jerome came to challenge the McKay crime family and Number One Son, Duke Lavery. It was Victor’s gorgeous, Duke-obsessed daughter Olivia (played by Tonja Walker) who ended up causing the most trouble for Duke and Anna — culminating in his struggle to leave the mob and his eventual (faked) death.
If Maura West’s Ava is related to the notorious family, then it could put Duke squarely in the bullseye; right back where he left off before he was “shot” on the docks. Not to mention it could drag him, and by extension Anna, back into the mayhem that got in the way of their relationship in the first place. Things might also get very sticky and uncomfortable for Sonny and his business associates, too.
And what about Olivia? One Jerome woman in town is trouble enough – the women in that family are even more lethal than the men – can Port Charles handle two?
HELLO MAURA WEST. WE AND MY FAMILY HAVE FOLLOWED YOU FOR MANY YEARS SINCE WAY BACK ON AS THE WORLD TURNS. WE STARTED WATCHING AS THE WORLD TURNS IN MAY OF 1981. YOU E-MAILED ME WHEN YOU GOT TO YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS THEN YOU WENT OFF THE SHOW. GENERAL HOSPITAL IS A GREAT SHOW. I USED TO GO INSIDE THE SHOW WHEN OLD RICK WEBER THE DOCTOR WAS ON THE SHOW. WHEN IT WAS IN BACK OF KTLA NEWS. AS THE WORLD TURNS I TAPED EVERY EPISODE SINCE 1981. YOUR A GREAT ACTRESS KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. I WON’T TAPE ANYMORE. I AM 80 YEARS OLD NOW. I DON’T DO MUCH ANYMORE.IF YOU SHOULD E-MAIL ME TO SAY HI. MY E-MAIL IS amoser4160@aol .com. I WILL SIGN OFF NOW WE WILL BE WATCHING YOU. GOD BLESS YOU FOR MANY YEARS TO COM. ALLEN MOSER AND FAMILY
RE: Olivia Jerome
She was shot dead in the courtroom. Of course it is Port Charles, where any and everyone keeps coming back from the dead whether or not they have died ON-SCREEN! It is becoming quite ridiculous as well as redundant. Let Ava stand on her own…don’t forget Lucas Jones (Tony and Bobbie’s adopted son) is the biological son of Julian Jerome, Olivia’s brother, and Cheryl Stansbury, Tiffany’s late sister.