A. J. Quartermaine

A.J. Quartermaine, born Alan Quartermaine Jr., was a fictional character on the soap opera General Hospital. He was played by actor Billy Warlock at his death in 2005. Prior to that, the character was played by actors Sean Kanan and Gerald Hopkins. A.J. was the son of the wealthy Dr. Alan and Dr. Monica Quartermaine. He was a tortured, often wrong-headed character whose stories centered on his battle with alcoholism, failed attempts to succeed in the family business ELQ, his family's preference for his brother, mafia hitman Jason Morgan, and his failed attempts to regain custody of his son, Michael.

Family life

A.J.'s mother, Monica, initially thought that he had been fathered by her lover, Dr. Rick Webber. Her jealous husband, Alan, even attempted to kill the pair during this period. But after A.J.'s birth, an unusual birthmark and a rare blood type helped prove that he was a Quartermaine. During his childhood, A.J. was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland with his younger brother Jason, who was Alan's son by a mistress but was adopted by Monica after her death. Monica, along with most of the family, favored Jason over A.J.. When the boys returned to Port Charles as teenagers, A.J. was battling a drinking problem that grew worse over the next years. He started a loan shark operation in college and had an affair with Nancy Eckert, the ex-wife of Spencer cousin Bill Eckert. He also paid someone to have her beat up to keep quiet about his misdeeds. He was arrested twice for drunken driving during his college years. During his second arrest, his girlfriend Nikki Langton told the police she'd been driving. A.J. wanted to marry Nikki, whose family tree was already entangled with A.J.'s. She was the paternal half-sister of A.J.'s half-sister Dawn Winthrop, a daughter Monica had given up for adoption before her marriage. Nikki was not related to A.J. by blood, but the Quartermaines did not like this close connection. A.J.'s father Alan paid off Nikki to leave town. When A.J. and Jason were college-aged, Jason was critically injured while trying to stop A.J. from driving drunk. When he woke from his coma, Jason no longer remembered his family or his earlier life. Jason became estranged from every Quartermaine except their younger adopted sister Emily Bowen-Quartermaine and went to work for mobster Sonny Corinthos as a hitman. The Quartermaines have blamed A.J. for the loss of Jason.

The battle over Michael

A.J. had a drunken one-night stand with Carly Corinthos, who was involved with Dr. Tony Jones. When Carly became pregnant, she was unsure which man was the father, but went to great lengths to keep A.J. from becoming suspicious. A.J. had stopped drinking and was attempting to straighten out his life. But Carly drugged A.J., hefted him into a laundry cart, and dumped him in a back alley behind a bar and poured alcohol all over him. She wanted him to think he'd been drinking so he would go to a rehabilitation facility out of state. She didn't want him around when the baby was born. Her efforts backfired and A.J. became suspicious. He demanded a DNA test when the baby was born and told Carly he wanted custody of the baby if it was his. Carly persuaded Jason, another of her ex-lovers, to assume paternity of the baby. When Michael was born, A.J. misunderstood a doctor's explanation about the baby's blood type and mistakenly believed Michael could not be his. A few years later, Jason's girlfriend Robin Scorpio told A.J. that he was, in fact, the father. A custody battle between Jason and A.J. followed. A.J. married Carly and took Michael to live with him, but he found it difficult to connect with the toddler, who was closely bonded to Jason. His family also was disappointed that Michael was not Jason's son. Ultimately, Carly had an affair with Sonny Corinthos, became pregnant by him, and Jason left town. A.J. initially offered to raise Sonny's child as his own, but the marriage broke up. Carly miscarried after she had a fight with A.J. on the stairs and fell. She married Sonny, who strong-armed A.J. into signing away his parental rights to Michael. Sonny blackmailed A.J. with his knowledge that A.J. had hired an arsonist to burn down Sonny's warehouse, also in an attempt to regain custody of Michael. He had his henchmen hang A.J. from a meathook and threatened to kill him unless A.J. signed away his rights.

Marriage to Courtney

A few years later, A.J. married Sonny's half-sister Courtney Matthews, thinking he could use her to gain revenge against Sonny and perhaps regain custody of Michael. He fell in love with Courtney and was happy for a time. One night a drunken A.J. drove into Coleman Ratcliffe's strip joint, with Courtney a passenger in the car. As A.J. had been cut off by the Quartermaines, Courtney went to work as a stripper to pay off A.J.'s debt and to keep A.J. out of trouble with the law. Unfortunately for A.J., Sonny assigned Jason to be Courtney's bodyguard and Courtney slowly fell in love with Jason during this period. A.J. burned down the strip joint when he learned that Courtney was stripping, but Jason pulled him out of the rubble. Hurt and angry that Courtney had fallen for his brother, "the golden boy," A.J. hired Ratcliffe, who was obsessed with Courtney, to stalk her for a time. After various other financial and illegal misadventures, A.J. stole money from the Quartermaine family and left the country with heiress Lydia Karenin.

Kidnapping and death

A.J. resurfaced in 2005 with another plot to get Michael back. He hired mobster Faith Roscoe to kidnap Sonny's children. The two younger children were returned unharmed, but Michael was presumed dead. A.J. tried to turn around his son's thinking. For a time, Michael seemed to warming up to him. A.J. planned to take Michael out of the country. Alan, who was sympathetic, initially helped A.J. but turned him in after seeing A.J.'s willingness to commit violence to get his own way. A.J.'s back was broken when Jason tried to apprehend him. He was smothered in the hospital by Dr. Asher Thomas, a man who he had blackmailed. A.J. had asked Thomas to kill Jason years earlier when Jason was brain damaged after the accident A.J. had caused. He didn't want Jason to be a vegetable. Thomas did not succeed in killing Jason, but A.J. used his willingness to do so to blackmail him years later. After A.J.'s murder, Michael was suspected of killing him for a time.

Parents

• Alan Quartermaine (father; deceased)
• Monica Quartermaine (mother)

Siblings

• Dawn Winthrop (Maternal Half-Sister, deceased)
• Jason Morgan (Paternal Half-Brother/Adoptive Brother)
• Emily Quartermaine (Adoptive Sister)
• Antoinette "Skye" Chandler-Quartermaine (Adoptive Paternal Half-Sister)

Nieces and Nephews

• Lila Alcazar (half-niece; by adoption)
• Jacob Martin Morgan (nephew, by Jason)

Grandparents

• Edward Quartermaine (paternal grandfather)
• Lila Quartermaine (maternal grandmother; deceased)
• George Quartermaine (paternal great-grandfather; deceased)
• Ida Zemlock (paternal great-grandmother; deceased)
• Harold Morgan (paternal great-grandfather; deceased)

Uncles and aunts

• Tracy Quartermaine (paternal aunt)
• Bradley Ward (paternal half-uncle; deceased)
• Jimmy Lee Holt (paternal half-uncle)

Cousins

• Ned Ashton (first cousin)
• Dillon Quartermaine (first cousin)
• Brook Lynn Ashton (first cousin once removed)
• Justus Ward (half first cousin; deceased)
• Faith Ward (half first cousin)

Marriages

Marriage Dissolved by his death -- Courtney Matthews (legally his widow)

• Carly Corinthos (divorced)

Children

• Michael Corinthos III (son; by Carly)

Romantic Entanglements

• Nancy Eckert (affair; deceased)
• Nikki Langton (lovers; engaged)
• Julia Barrett (lovers)
• Keesha Ward (dated)
• Carly Corinthos (one-night stand, married later & had sex 5 times on air)
• Hannah Scott (dated)
• Courtney Matthews (lovers)
• Lydia Karenin (lovers)
• Rachel Adair (lovers)