Ned Quartermaine (Wally Kurth)

Edward Lawrence "Ned" Ashton is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera, General Hospital. He was portrayed by Kurt McKinney from 1988 to 1991, and Wally Kurth from 1991 until November 2007.

Ned is the son of Tracy Quartermaine and Larry Ashton, a British aristocrat. He heads up the Quartermaine family business ELQ and also handles personal family crisises that arise, earning him the family nickname "Gatekeeper" for grandfather Edward Quartermaine, grandmother Lila Quartermaine, uncle Alan Quartermaine, aunt Monica Quartermaine, mother Tracy Quartermaine, cousins Alan "AJ" Quartermaine Jr., Jason Morgan, and Emily Quartermaine, and half-brother Dillon Quartermaine.

Ned has had a number of relationships over the years. He was first introduced as having an affair with Dr. Monica Quartermaine, the wife of his uncle Alan. She didn't recognize him because he had been sent to boarding school as a child and she didn't see him again until he was an adult. He later married and annulled Monica's daughter Dawn Winthrop, divorced Spencer cousin Jenny Eckert, and band manager and recording company executive Lois Cerullo, the mother of his daughter Brook Lynn Ashton. He was also briefly married to Katherine Bell because she was blackmailing the family. The marriage was invalid, because at the same time, he was married to Lois as Eddie Maine. He had a long affair with Alexis Davis, but she left him at the altar on their wedding day.

He had a platonic marriage to Chloe Morgan, who was a distant cousin of his grandmother Lila, and later was engaged to Alexis's long-lost sister Kristina Cassadine, whose death he and Alexis blamed on Sonny Corinthos. Most recently, Ned had a relationship with Skye Chandler. For a time he pretended to be the father of Alexis's daughter, Kristina Corinthos-Davis and had custody of the little girl when Alexis was on trial for murdering Luis Alcazar and was later sentenced to probation. Alexis didn't want the Quartermaines to be involved in the girl's life, and he later decided to give up contact with her. Ned has been a back burner character in recent years, living quietly in Los Angeles and Brooklyn at once.

He returned in November 2007 to attend Emily's funeral.
 * Ned Ashton @ Soapcentral.com