Whether by accident or by design sometimes an actor considered a bit player or non-essential to a TV show’s main storyline becomes an underground fan favorite.

Meet Carolyn Hennesy a.k.a. Diane Miller on General Hospital.  Hennesy is one of those actresses who probably gets a lot of people coming up to her and saying, “Didn’t we go to high school together?” or “Weren’t you my brother’s divorce attorney?” The 46-year old classically trained actress looks so familiar because she works steadily in Hollywood and has for years.

Hennesy’s IMBd.com page lists bit parts in everything from Dawson’s Creek to Moesha to Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare but so far none of those roles have launched her into that fabled realm of name-recognition stardom.

Some General Hospital fans think that should change.  A few have even launched a write-in campaign on various soap opera message boards to get Henessey’s character a life and storyline of her own.

Hennesy arrived in Port Charles in January of 2007 as icy mob lawyer Diane Miller.  Fans quickly realized her range of acting skills far outstripped her limited role as Sonny Corinthos’ immaculately dressed mouthpiece.

During one of mob enforcer Jason Morgan’s (Steve Burton) many arrests and trials Hennesy showed her acting chops during verbal spars with DA Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst).

But it is in GH’s rare comedic moments that fans have grown to love her. Hennesy’s Diane Miller is neither of the two stock soap opera female stereotypes. She isn’t a victim and she isn’t a brutal diva. Her character is nobody’s fool.  But she isn’t too ashamed to admit she needs a dry martini or a man (preferably a younger man) once in a while…which ever comes first.

Hennesy’s interactions with town vixen and busybody Carly Jacks (Laura Wright) and slacker/hacker Damian Spinelli (think a much smarter version of Shaggy from Scooby Doo) have also fleshed out Hennesy’s ability to run circles around other characters in dialogue. At one point during a scene with the oddly verbose Spinelli (Bradford Anderson) an exasperated Diane Miller asks him, “Who is the grasshopper? I thought you were the Jackal?” (Spinelli’s character has referred to himself as both… it’s a GH thing, you’d have to watch).

Hennesy’s Diane character and Spinelli have brought a breath of fresh air to tired soap opera clichés. Neither fit the standard mold and both have become must see daytime TV.

Fans have also enjoyed the interplay between fellow uptight attorney Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn). The two characters were thrown together during a Planes, Trains and Automobiles type scenario that had them stranded in the backwoods. Together they lamented over bad men, a love of shopping and a stiff drink. It allowed the to two characters to break out of their normally confined roles. Fans loved their sort-of ice princess version of Thelma and Louise.

Carolyn Hennesy is an interesting character in her own right. She studied at the American Conservatory Theater and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She is a published children’s book author and a trapeze artist to boot!

Her book Pandora Gets Jealous weaves Greek mythology into the tale of a 13-year old girl who finds what appears to be a simple box. That box ends up unleashing a boatload of evil and misery on the world (no, this isn’t a true story). “Pandy”, as her lead character is called, must collect all those evils within a year’s time.

Only time and the whims of General Hospital’s writers will tell what becomes of Diane Miller.  But if fans have anything to do with it, she… like her “Pandy” character will become important in her own right.

Click here to visit Carolyn Hennesy’s offical website.