General Hospital Icon Maurice Benard Flies For First Time In Years – Overcomes Fear Of Flying

General Hospital star Maurice Benard [who plays mob boss Sonny Corinthos on the show] has just flown for the first time in years! Maurice even tweeted about the incident, writing:

Maurice has been outspoken about suffering from bipolar and claustrophobia, so it’s not shocking to hear that he’s stayed away from flying all these years. More so than bipolar, claustrophobic people have an extremely difficult time on planes – something about being trapped thousands of feet in the area in an enclosed metal box, for all intents and purposes.

Maurice Benard has been vocal about his fear of flying, having last flown in January 2011 to go to Disneyland with family and attend various fan conventions. However, he reportedly started having a panic attack right before takeoff, and had to depart the flight with his family. Before that, it had been several years before he had flown, so it’s not shocking that he had a last-minute attack.

At the end of the day, a hearty congratulations to Maurice for overcoming his fear and flying! Not many people are willing to admit that they’re scared of flying, even though plenty of people secretly deal with their fear through anti-anxiety medication or sleeping pills.

Of course, while his fear of flying never affected Maurice Benard’s career on General Hospital directly, I’m sure it limited his opportunities to a large degree. One of the biggest parts of an actor’s life is travel, and not being able to fly to other places likely limited the number of roles he could take – or even the amount of promotion he could do!

Meanwhile, Maurice is happy and having a great time in NYC finally beating his fear of flying and tweeted the follow: