A.J. Quartermaine (Sean Kanan)

'''Alan James "A.J." Quartermaine, Jr.' is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital''. The son of the iconic and wealthy Drs. Alan and Monica Quartermaine, A.J.'s storylines have centered on his battle with alcoholism; rivalry with his cousin, Ned Ashton; his family's preference for his brother, Jason Morgan; and his failed attempts to regain custody of his son, Michael Corinthos. After being SORASed, the character was played by Sean Kanan from 1993 until 1997. Billy Warlock then took over the role from 1997 until 2003, and reprised it in 2005. Kanan returned to the role on October 26, 2012.

Childhood
Alan Quartermaine, Jr. is born onscreen into the chaotic Quartermaine family on December 13, 1979. At the time of his conception, his mother, Monica, was sleeping with Rick Webber, despite her being married to Alan. Alan's sister, Tracy, attempts to drive a wedge between the couple by planting seeds of doubt in Alan's mind that Alan Jr. is really Rick's son. In early 1980, it is learned that Alan Jr. has a heart condition and Rick comes back to to perform the surgery. Rick soon confronts Alan, who is already aware that Rick is Alan Jr.'s father, and claims the infant. However, Monica soon discovers that Alan Jr. carries a birthmark identical Alan's. A DNA test later confirms his paternity, that Alan truly is his father. In 1981, Alan has an affair with Susan Moore, which results in his illegitimate son, Jason. Monica and Alan separate when he moves in with Susan, and Monica files for sole custody of Alan Jr. Alan and Monica soon reconcile, and Susan sues the Quartermaines for Jason's inheritance. After Susan is murdered, Monica legally adopts Jason. Some time during childhood, Alan Jr. and Jason are sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.

College years
Alan Jr., now going by the name A.J. leaves school, and ends up in jail for drunk driving. A.J. of course blames his troubled childhood, while his grandmother, Lila, promises to give him and his cousin Ned their inheritance if they can stay out of trouble for six months. Meanwhile, A.J.'s parents remarry; and his little brother, Jason, returns home from boarding school. A.J. takes pleasure in reminding Jason that he is illegitimate. A.J. meanwhile starts a loan shark operation in college and has an affair with Nancy Eckert, the ex-wife of Spencer cousin Bill Eckert. He pays someone to have her beat up to keep quiet about his misdeeds. In 1992, Nikki Langton comes to town looking for revenge against Monica for her father David's death. When her malpractice suit against Monica fails, she begins dating A.J. Nikki soon tricks A.J. into proposing marriage so that she can get her hands on the Quartermaine fortune. In November 1992, A.J. is devastated when Nikki leaves him at the altar after Alan pays her to leave town. A.J. turns to alcohol to numb the pain. After learning about his father's schemes, A.J. tracks Nikki to Malibu and attempts to win her back, but she has already married another man. A.J. starts drinking even more, and develops a drinking problem that grows worse over the next years.

In 1993, A.J. has an affair with Ned's former lover, Julia Barrett, before she leaves town.

In 1995, A.J. and Jason happily welcome their new adopted sister, Emily Bowen, to the Quartermaine family.

In 1996, Jason is injured while trying to prevent A.J. from driving drunk. Jason falls into a coma; and when he recovers, no longer remembers anyone. He becomes estranged from every Quartermaine except younger adopted sister Emily, cousin Ned and grandmother Lila. Jason goes to work for mobster Sonny Corinthos as a hitman. Because of this, the Quartermaines have never fully forgiven A.J. for his role in the loss of Jason.

Michael and Carly
A.J. has a drunken one-night stand with Carly Benson, who is involved with Dr. Tony Jones. When Carly learns she is pregnant, she is unsure which man is the father, but goes to great lengths to keep A.J. from becoming suspicious. A.J. has stopped drinking and is attempting to straighten out his life, but Carly drugs him, hefts him into a laundry cart, dumps him in a back alley behind a bar and pours alcohol all over him. She wants him to think he's been drinking so he will go to a rehabilitation facility out of state, as she does not want him around when the baby is born. Her efforts backfire, and A.J. becomes suspicious. He demands a DNA test and tells Carly he wants custody of the baby if it's his. Carly persuades Jason, another of her ex-lovers, to assume paternity of the baby. When Michael is born, A.J. misunderstands a doctor's explanation about the baby's blood type and mistakenly believes Michael could not be his. A few years later, Jason's girlfriend, Robin Scorpio, tells A.J. that he is in fact Michael's father. A custody battle between Jason and A.J. follows. A.J. decides to patch things up with Carly to please his grandfather, Edward, who is adamant about keeping the Quartermaines together under one roof. A.J. eventually wins Carly over, and they marry on May 26, 1999 at the Quartermaine Mansion, much to the dismay of both Alan and Monica. Carly and Michael come to live with the Quartermaines, but A.J. finds it difficult to connect with the toddler, who is closely bonded to Jason. Ultimately, Carly has an affair with Sonny Corinthos, becomes pregnant by him, and Jason leaves town. A.J. agrees to pass the child Carly is carrying off as his own in order to get revenge on Jason for hiding Michael's paternity, but is still furious that the child is fathered by Sonny. Sonny eventually comes to claim the unborn child and blackmails A.J. with his knowledge that A.J. hired an arsonist to burn down Sonny's warehouse, also in an attempt to regain custody of Michael. Sonny then takes Carly and Michael to live with him, away from the Quartermaine Mansion. A month later, Carly and A.J. get into an argument; and she ends up falling down a flight of stairs and miscarries. A.J. is later disinherited by his family and forced to move out of the mansion. Meanwhile, Sonny and Carly schemed to gain custody of young Michael. Sonny kidnaps A.J., and his henchmen hang him from a meat hook. Sonny then threatens to kill him unless A.J. signs away all parental rights; Sonny later adopts Michael.

A.J. becomes even more self-destructive and destroys his relationship with Hannah Scott when he nearly died from alcohol poisoning. When Monica has a health scare, A.J. decides to move back into the mansion and reconciles with his family.

Marriage to Courtney
A few years later, A.J. bonds with his long-lost sister, Skye Chandler, who also battles with alcoholism. Together, they plann to bring Michael back into the Quartermaine fold. A.J. marries Sonny's half-sister, Courtney Matthews, thinking he can use her to gain revenge against Sonny and regain custody of Michael. A.J. falls in love with Courtney and is happy for a time. When faced with the choice of choosing Courtney or the Quartermaines, he chooses his wife, and is cut off financially from the family. Faced with endless ridicule at his new job, he gets drunk one night and drives into Coleman Ratcliffe's strip joint, with Courtney a passenger in the car. Courtney then starts working as a stripper to pay off A.J.'s debt and to keep A.J. out of trouble with the law. However, Sonny assigns Jason to be Courtney's bodyguard and Courtney slowly falls in love with Jason. A.J. burns down the strip joint when he learns that Courtney is stripping there, but Jason pulls him out of the rubble. Hurt and angry that Courtney has fallen for his brother, "the golden boy," A.J. hires Ratcliffe, who is obsessed with Courtney, to stalk her. However, the plan backfires when Courtney learns the truth. Courtney wants to end the marriage, and A.J. swears revenge on Jason. He teams up with Skye to frame Jason and Brenda Barrett for the murder of Luís Alcázar.

Later, A.J. finally gets his chance to run the family business, ELQ Enterprises, when he becomes CEO after Ned is falsely accused of rape. After various other financial and illegal misadventures, he becomes involved with Lydia Karenin. The couple leaves town together in 2003 after A.J. empties all of the family's bank accounts.

Kidnapping and "death"
A.J. resurfaces in 2005 with another plot to get Michael back. He hires Faith Rosco to kidnap Sonny's children. The two younger children, Kristina and Morgan, are rescued by Jason and Sam McCall, but Michael is presumed dead. A.J. plans to take Michael out of the country. Alan, who is sympathetic toward A.J., initially helps him, but turns him in after seeing A.J.'s willingness to commit violence to get his own way. A.J. later shoots his own father, Alan; and when Jason tries to apprehend him, A.J.'s back is broken and he is hospitalized. While in the hospital, he is smothered by Dr. Asher Thomas, a man who A.J. was blackmailing, for years ago having attempted to kill Jason at A.J's request. After A.J's "murder," his son Michael is a suspect for awhile, but is eventually cleared.

As the years pass, Jason realizes that he had been wrong about his decision to help Sonny and Carly keep Michael away from A.J. because he had taken his brother's chance of being a father and getting to know his son away from him. In 2007, Jason visits A.J.'s grave to apologize, and to tell him that he himself would never get to be a part of his son Jake's life. His regret over his decision increases even more after Michael is shot and falls into a coma because of Sonny, and Jason feels that Michael would have been safer with A.J. as his father.

Michael later awakes from his coma in the summer of 2009, a bitter teenager. Carly fears that her son will be in danger, and places him under the custody of the Quartermaines for the summer, which greatly pleases Monica and Edward. Michael later moves out after he himself chooses to live with his stepfather, Jasper Jacks.

Return in 2012
In October 2012, Jason is shot by Cesar Faison, who's disguised as Duke Lavery, and presumed dead after being kicked into the harbor. After hearing the news from Michael, Monica makes a phone call to an unknown person. On October 26, 2012, A.J. is revealed to be alive when he comes to see Monica in the living room at the Quartermaine Mansion.

It is revealed that Monica and Dr. Steve Webber had faked A.J.'s death in 2005. After A.J. was smothered by Dr. Thomas, Steve worked on him to revive him, but A.J. flatlined and pronounced dead. Monica was then left alone with her "dead" son, to whom she talked and cried over. A.J. then miraculously gasped for air and awoke. Seeing as A.J. was going to be sent to prison for shooting Alan and kidnapping Michael, Morgan and Kristina, Monica agreed to fake his death, and asked Steve to help her do it. No one, not even Alan, knew that A.J. had survived, except Monica and Steve.

Monica is shocked, but overjoyed, to see A.J. She wants him to leave town because he is a wanted man if anyone knows he's alive, but A.J. refuses, saying he wants to get to know his son Michael. A.J. later goes to a Halloween costume party at The Haunted Star, dressed as the grim reaper. There, he reveals his identity to Michael. Michael eventually indirectly tells Carly that his father is alive. Carly calls Todd Manning to help deal with A.J. being alive. Tracy walks into the Quartermaine living room and eventually turns towards Monica and sees A.J. Tracy then is knocked out by Alice and is transported to the boat house. Then A.J. is found by Carly and Dante Falconeri comes to arrest A.J.

Getting to know Michael and ELQ drama
A.J. convinces a judge to set bail and Monica puts the Quartermaine Mansion up as collateral. Tracy overhears and gets Monica to check on Edward. Then Tracy pretends to get a phone call, saying there is something wrong with Michael. A.J. cuts off his ankle bracelet and runs to Michael, who is at Jason's house. A.J. realizes Tracy set him up, and Michael tries to stop Tracy. However, he's stopped by Sam, now Jason's wife, who refuses to let A.J. stay there. Michael convinces her to, though, but Sam lets A.J. know of her disdain towards him. A.J. tries to convince Sam he's changed, and he's sorry for everything he put Jason through. He's surprised when Sam reveals that she & Jason have a son named Danny, and A.J. asks to meet his nephew, insisting he has changed. Sam introduces him to Danny, and A.J. is glad Jason finally has a family of his own. Dante eventually comes and arrests him, but the judge gives A.J. another chance when the circumstances are revealed.

Edward, meanwhile, is bed-ridden, and Monica finds out he's not going to last much longer. A.J. wants to see him, but is prevented by Tracy. He calls Michael and Sam over, though, to have them say goodbye. A.J. later says that he wants to apologize to Edward for the wrongs he committed, and Tracy lets him go. By the time he gets there, though, it is too late, and A.J. is devastated over Edward's passing. AJ is prevented from attending the funeral of his grandfather, but says few words at the burial. He attends the reading of the will, where he's given 12% of Edward's ELQ shares. He and Skye talk about his intentions of revitalizing ELQ. They discuss their shareholder's allegiance to him or the current CEO Tracy. Both sides state that they have 41% each of shareholder votes and need to reel in Sam, because she isn't too affirmed with either side. Sam has 18% due to Jason being treated as alive but missing and Danny being an infant.

A.J. goes to the PCPD and gives the district attorney valuable information about Cesar Faison and the 2005 charges are dropped. A.J. later goes to Volonino's Gym and spots Sonny. He sees Sonny's phone ringing with a text from Michael saying that he is coming over to the gym. A.J. uses this information to stage Sonny against Michael. A.J. insults Sonny and is beaten up afterwards when Michael comes in. Michael's girlfriend Starr finds out that this beat up was a setup and reveals it to Michael. A.J. convinces Michael that he was wrong to stage it, but he will stride to be "better person".

He starts following his aunt Tracy, who is taking Lucy shopping, to see what she is up to. The three discuss the predicament that Tracy and A.J. are in and the two try to persuade Lucy to cast the tiebreaker vote their way. Lucy says that she is late for a meeting at GH. Lucy goes to Sabrina and tells her that she is not underwriting The Nurses' Ball. However, she points to Tracy and A.J. who are racing out of the elevator to catch up to Lucy that one of them will be writing out the check for the Ball.

He goes to the hospital where Michael is (Michael is there to support Kristina with Kristina's boyfriend Trey brain dead) and tells him that the shareholders on his side have signed a corporate resolution to slip Tracy as a CEO. With Carly signing over rights to allow Michael to cast his shares where he wants to. AJ and Tracy are now split 50% to 50%. To break the tie, as anticipated, Lucy as the tiebreaker casts her vote for Tracy. Lucy and Tracy met at the Floating Rib in the January 10 episode, where Tracy made Lucy Co-CEO (or Lucy's term Coe-CEO) and she would underwrite the Nurses' Ball.

Gaining control of ELQ and revitalizing plans
Desperate to gain control of ELQ, AJ goes to visit Lucy Coe and Heather Webber at Ferncliff. Heather claims to know of another way for AJ to gain control of ELQ. Michael tells AJ not to work with Heather Webber because she is the one that is responsible for keeping Jason from his son. AJ then works to get evidence that Tracy put Mob money into ELQ. Michael is able to get this evidence from Johnny. Michael and A.J. uses the information to force Tracy to sign over the ELQ company to AJ. Tracy mistakenly leaks the story before realizes that there might be another way to re-take ELQ, another living ELQ heir. A.J. and Michael go to Connie's office and Connie lies/says that Sonny leaked the information. This gets Michael frustrated. Back at the ELQ office, A.J. began having a heart attack, which turns out to be a panic attack.

A.J. hires Duke Lavery as an assistant at ELQ and Duke steals the pickle ralish from Tracy. Ellie Trout examines the pickle ralish in the GH lab and writes the ingredients down on a piece of paper. Spinelli steals the recipe and then subsequently swallows it after Tracy and Alice threatened him. A.J. waiting for his date with Elizabeth Webber is used by Carly Corinthos-Jacks. Carly kisses and then makes out with him in front of her latest ex Todd Manning. (4-12-13)  Carly bribes him to go along with the scheme with the details of unknown Quartermaine heir as an incentive. Carly and A.J.'s scheme falls about due to a "nanny cam" and A.J. is able to reconcile with Elizabeth Webber, though in exchange agreeing to do a number with her at the Nurses' Ball.

Crimes committed

 * Arrested for drunk driving several times
 * Loan shark operation in college
 * Hired someone to beat up Nancy Eckert to keep her quiet about his misdeeds
 * Responsible for the car accident that left Jason Morgan brain-damaged [1996]
 * Had Jason and Sonny Corinthos' warehouse torched [Feb 2001]
 * Blackmailed Skye Chandler-Quartermaine into helping him try to regain custody of his son Michael Corinthos [2001]
 * Pursued a relationship and marriage with Courtney Matthews, Sonny's half-sister, to try to get custody of Michael [Jan 2002]
 * Drove drunk and crashed into the Oasis, a strip club [Jul 2002]
 * Torched the Oasis after finding out that Courtney was stripping there in order to keep the owner quiet about A.J. being the one who plowed into the club with his car [Aug 2002]
 * Hired Coleman Ratcliffe to stalk Courtney [Sep-Oct 2002]
 * Hired a private investigator to follow Courtney [Jan 2003]
 * Set the gatehouse on fire as part of a plan to give Edward Quartermaine custody of baby Kristina Davis [Mar 24, 2003]
 * Teamed up with Skye to kidnap baby Kristina [Mar 2003]
 * Brought an intoxicated Janine Matthews to Courtney's wedding shower to cause problems [May 2003]
 * Bribery; paid Janine to convince her daughter, Courtney, not to marry Jason [Jun 2003]
 * Attended an illegal auction; was present while Luke Spencer was auctioning off the Dead-Man's Hand [Oct 2003]
 * Stole the Quartermaine fortune and fled the country [Dec 2003]
 * Falsified divorce documents to render them invalid
 * Assaulted his brother Jason Morgan
 * Hired Faith Rosco to kidnap Michael, Morgan Corinthos, and Kristina
 * Hired a hitman to murder Faith Rosco [Mar 2005]
 * Staged Michael's death
 * Shot and wounded his father Alan Quartermaine
 * Attempted murder of his brother Jason, revealed after A.J.'s supposed death
 * Hired Dr. Asher Thomas to kill Jason in 1996 while Jason was in coma
 * Blackmailed Dr. Thomas to certify that A.J. was insane when he kidnapped Michael, shot Alan, and tried to kill Jason
 * Fugitive; fled

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