MAMA MIA (ER.... MARINA)!



Jennifer Roszell returns to Guiding Light as Eleni on Thursday, December 4 when Mallet surprises girlfriend Marina by bringing her back to town.

Eleni Andros, originally played by current CSI: New York star Melina Kanakaredes, first came to Springfield in 1991. Frank Cooper's uncle Stavros was concerned about the barrenness of Frank's love life (you know, kind of how it is now) and decided to rectify the problem by getting him a nice, modest, proper Greek mail-order bride.

Frank, for some reason, was less than enamored by his gift. He turned Eleni down flat. So instead of getting married, the new immigrant settled for working in the Cooper family diner (lack of green card be damned. Like Apu on The Simpsons, her only crime, after all, was breaking US law). She briefly dated Dylan Lewis, but ended the relationship when she learned he had an illegitimate daughter, Daisy. Eleni thought an out of wedlock child shocking and scandalous. Obviously, she hadn't been in Springfield for very long.



Frank eventually found himself drawn to the beautiful and spirited Eleni in spite of himself. But he had a competitor for her affections -- Alan-Michael Spaulding. Frank hired a lawyer to help Eleni with her immigration status, but Eleni mistakenly believed Alan-Michael was her hero. She also mistakenly believed that Frank had slept with another woman while they were dating (it was actually an Alan-Michael orchestrated set-up but, as I said earlier, Eleni hadn't been in Springfield for very long; she didn't know how things worked there). As a result, Eleni accepted Alan-Michael's proposal and married him in order to remain in the US.

To make certain that Eleni would be connected to him forever, Alan-Michael switched his wife's birth control pills with placebos. Unfortunately, that plan came back to bite him when Eleni became pregnant -- with Frank's baby. But it was good news for Eleni. Once Alan-Michael learned the baby definitely wasn't his, he agreed to divorce Eleni.



Frank and Eleni married in 1993, and their daughter, Marina, was born the same day as the wedding. Also that day, Frank learned that the man pretending to be his cousin, Rex, was actually his long lost father, Buzz Cooper. It was a big day.

The Cooper marriage managed to weather several crises, such as their babysitter, Julie's (Mallet's kid sister) infatuation with Frank, Frank's jealousy over Eleni's success in the business world and several of Eleni's kidnappings. In 1999, though, they split up over Frank kissing his new police partner, Terri (who turned out to be psycho Annie Dutton in disguise). Eleni moved with Marina to California, and she and Frank divorced.

At the end of 2001, Frank and Eleni were briefly reunited as they searched for a missing, now teen-ages Marina, but their love failed to reignite.

The last time viewers saw Eleni was in 2006, when she came for Marina's graduation from the police academy -- and questioned her daughter's dedication to being a cop.



Marina insisted that it was what she truly wanted and Eleni backed off.

Wonder what Eleni will think about Marina dating her dad's best friend?



Tune in to Guiding Light next month and find out!