Nellie Andreeva

One of One Life To Live‘s most popular characters, Todd Manning, will be back, at least for a while. I’ve learned that Roger Howarth, who portrayed the character on the ABC soap, has signed to reprise his role on the series’ revival for Prospect Park‘s Online Network. But that doesn’t mean Howarth will be departing ABC’s General Hospital, where his character migrated after the end of OLTL. I hear Howarth has signed on to film OLTL for four weeks starting in late March. He then is expected to go back to General Hospital and continue as Manning.

Howarth is one of three OLTL actors who segued to GH after the show ended in January 2012, along with Michael Easton and Kristen Alderson. The three had been the subject of legal wrangling between Prospect Park and ABC as Prospect Park made it clear it wanted the actors back on OLTL, though it indicated it was willing to make a compromise by sharing the characters with ABC’s GH as the company is in a multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with the network for its two online soaps, OLTL and All My Children. For now, Howarth appears to be the only actor to have worked out such an arrangement.

Howarth, repped by Gersh and Bob McGowan, joined OLTL in 1992 and played Manning on and off until 2003. After an eight-year break, he returned to the series in April 2011 for its final year before moving to GH. 

In other Online Network announcements today, it said actor and Ford model Robert Scott Wilson will be joining the cast of AMC as Pete Cortlandt, Opal Cortlandt’s youngest son.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.