How All My Children's Dixie Led To General Hospital's Marty Having A Mysterious Southern Accent

When Dixie was on "All My Children," one of the most distinguishing characteristics that she had was a southern accent, because the character was from Pigeon Hollow, West Virginia. As he was playing her long-time love interest Tad, Michael E. Knight had a lot of time to study exactly how Cady McClain sounded when she spoke in the accent. When Knight was cast as Martin Grey on "General Hospital," he felt like the character could benefit from a little extra pizzazz.

During a Fantasy Events Live interview, Knight was asked about how he came up with the accent for Martin and where it came from. He responded, "As I was running the lines, I kept coming up with this Virginian accent. I said to the producers, can I give this a shot?"

The powers-that-be gave Knight permission to play around with the accent, and Knight gave praise to McClain for finding out exactly how it should sound. "I'd listen to her for so many years. I got to do my own and it stuck. The show did come back to me after a week of my doing it and asked if I could tone it down."