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Ric Lansing,
Played by Rick Hearst
Written by Taryn

Ric Lansing is a ruthless lawyer who would stop at nothing to see his brother go down. He was filled with emotional problems that stem from his childhood. He constantly blamed his brother, Sonny, for ruining his life and killing his mother, even though his fondest wish would have been for Sonny to love and accept him as his brother (alas, Sonny figured out quickly that Ric was not trustworthy). He also had huge resentment of his evil father, Trevor, who didn't treat him very well growing up; and for Jason, who Sonny treats more like a brother than Ric could ever be.

Ric Lansing first appeared on General Hospital in a Venezuelan prison cell next to Jason and Carly. A few weeks later, he arrived in Port Charles, around the time Luis Alcazar was murdered. He immediately tried to get a job working for Sonny Corinthos, but Sonny turned him down, even though he needed a lawyer, because Ric was too eager for the job. Later, Sonny decided to hire Ric for small jobs which involved the Alcazar murder trial. While on the job, Ric tried to become friends with Sonny's wife Carly, and eventually, she hired him as business manager for her new club. It eventually came out that he used to work for Luis Alcazar and was present the day that Alcazar was killed. Ric admitted that he saw Alcazar's body and then tried to get rid of anything that would connect him to the mobster. Ric had nothing to do with the murder because the killer turned out to be Alexis. As he was working for Carly, he continued to pressure Sonny to give him a real job. Again, Sonny turned him down.

Ric was also a blackmailer. On the night of Carly's club opening, she saw Sonny kissing Brenda, so she ran off and got drunk. One of Faith's men tried to hit on Carly at the bar, and he slipped something into her drink. Ric rescued her by getting rid of the guy and taking her to a motel room. When the two awoke, Carly was naked and assumed that they had sex. Ric did not correct her mistake and used this night to blackmail Carly into making Sonny give him a job.

One day a hit man shot up Carly's club, and Ric took a bullet for Sonny. Sonny and Carly believed it was an accident that he got shot, but Ric believed that the bullet he took proved his loyalty to Sonny. Sonny, seeing Ric for the weasel he was, still refused to let Ric work for him. Angry, Ric formed a silent partnership with Faith. He wanted to destroy Sonny from the inside out. This was the beginning of his devious plotting. When he was on the verge of being exposed, Ric tried to cover his tracks by shooting his partner Faith and threatening to kill her if she revealed that they were working together.

Around the same time, Carly found out that she was pregnant and was worried that Ric, not Sonny, was the father. Eventually ,she got a paternity test done, and it was revealed that Sonny was the father. Carly confessed to Sonny that she was drugged and woke up next to Ric. Sonny took Ric hostage and asked him why he wanted to ruin his life, but Ric escaped and kidnapped Sonny's sister Courtney. He stashed her somewhere and then fled to Martha's Vineyard. Sonny tracked him down, so Ric finally told Sonny who he really was: his half-brother, his mother's son.

Ric blamed Sonny for their mother choosing to live a life with Sonny instead of living with him and his father. Ric's father Trevor and Sonny's mother broke up after an accident in which his mother fell down the stairs while pregnant with Ric. Trevor blamed Sonny for what happened and said she had to give up Sonny or stay with him, so she chose to leave with Sonny. After that, Trevor became a cold and miserable man and never showed Ric any love. This twisted Ric into the horrible person he is today, bent on revenge against Sonny, with no room in his heart for anything else.

Sonny chose not to shoot Ric because he was his brother, which may have been a big mistake, given all the pain he has caused Sonny. Ric eventually fell in love with Elizabeth Webber, who found out that Ric had a huge vendetta against Sonny. She rejected Ric but then found out that she was pregnant with Ric's child. Before she could have an abortion, Ric showed up and begged her to forgive him. She told him that she was pregnant, so Ric became ecstatic. He believed that they could be happy together. The two got married and tried to start a family. At this time, he called a truce with Sonny. It seemed that he wanted to get his life on the right track.

After having a meeting with Sonny, pregnant Elizabeth was pushed down a flight of icy stairs, from behind, by Faith, who was in love with Ric. When Elizabeth became conscious, the last thing she could remember was Sonny. This caused rage in Ric, who now believed that Sonny was the one who pushed Elizabeth down the steps.

Ric pretended to maintain the truce with Sonny, while planning to steal Sonny and Carly's baby to replace his child. Ric bought a house with a secret panic room in it. He kidnapped Carly in front of her son Michael and kept her in the room, chained to a wall. Sonny didn't believe that Ric had Carly, but Jason did after Michael said that he saw Ric kidnap Carly.

At the same time, Elizabeth wanted to have another baby, but Ric had become so obsessed that he prevented that from happening: he paid off a doctor to tell Elizabeth that she couldn't conceive. Elizabeth got a second opinion that said she could have a baby. So to truly prevent her from having a baby, he put birth control pills in her food.

One day, Elizabeth discovered the button that opened the door to the panic room, and she was stunned to see Carly inside. Before Elizabeth could get help, she passed out. Ric discovered what happened, put Carly back into the room, and took Elizabeth to the hospital. The pills he gave her caused a blood clot that nearly killed her. Ric nearly smothered Elizabeth with a pillow to keep her from telling the cops about Carly, but at the last minute he had feelings of remorse and decided to let Carly go instead. Elizabeth woke up and remembered seeing Carly. She called the cops and turned Ric in. Before Sonny was able to come get Carly, Lorenzo's men knocked out Ric and kidnapped Carly.

Ric did not get put in jail because Scott Baldwin was D.A. He was corrupt and hated Sonny, so he said that there was no evidence to prosecute Ric. Eventually, he made Ric his assistant D.A. When Scott left town, Ric took over, continuing the corruption and the vendetta against Sonny.

Ric got his life back with Elizabeth and seemed to clean up his act when he became assistant D.A. Elizabeth became pregnant again, but this time the baby's father was Zander Smith, whom she’d had a one-night stand with when she and Ric had broken up. Ric and Elizabeth had decided to raise the baby as their own, but she realized that Ric still wanted revenge against Sonny, so she broke up with him and left town to have her baby.

Ric was still after Sonny. He never seemed to learn his lesson and continued on his self-destructive path. Revenge is sweet, but Ric is not! Ric attacked Sonny's family to try to get to him.

Ric later married Alexis, and she had his child, Molly. At first they married so that Alexis could keep Kristina away from Sonny, but they ended up falling in love.  Things turned sour between them, and he slept with Sam, one of her other daughters. Alexis had cancer, so this just made things worse.

Ric shows signs of being a real person and having sympathy, but he is always doing the wrong thing and being self-destructive, ruining his own life.

He visited his childhood home to try to deal with his past with his father and with Sonny. He met and fell for Marianna, but she turned out to be hired by his father.  He made some deals to work with Anthony  against Sonny, but it never really worked out the way he planned. The writers took Ric to the point of no return when they had him rape Claudia in April, 2009. He left town in July, trying to start a new life.

Ric was a despicable character with very few redeeming qualities. His portrayer Rick Hearst's charm and good looks are the only things that made us like Ric at all. He was mostly a weasel.

Proofread by Laura 1/12/11

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Page updated 4/25/12