Jessie Brewer (Emily McLaughlin)

Jessie Brewer R.N. (née Murray) was a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. She was played by actress Emily McLaughlin who was an original cast member from 1963-1991.

Storylines
When General Hospital began, Jessie was introduced as a nursewho had recently married up and coming surgeon Phil Brewer. The marriage caused a bit of a stir as Phil was seven years younger than Jessie and was known for his womanising ways. Within a year, Phil had cheated on Jessie with another nurse but returned to Jessie when she discovered that she was pregnant.

In 1964, Jessie suffered a miscarriage and seperated from Phil. Jessie was one of the first people to discover that teenager Angie Costello was pregnant and she and Dr Steve Hardy helped Angie with her various problems. Soon afterwards, Jessie began dating lawyer Lee Baldwin, a recovering alcoholic who was volunteering as an addiction counselor at the hospital.

As Jessie and Phil's divorce was about to be finalised, Phil got drunk and decided to win Jessie back. When Jessie refused Phil's advances, he raped her. The encounter left Jessie pregnant and while Lee offered to marry Jessie and give their child a name, Jessie felt that she had no choice but to go back to Phil. Unfortunately Phil and Jessie's daughter, Nancy was premature and died shortly after birth. Jessie divorced Phil and resolved to move on with her life.

In 1967, Jessie married John Prentice, a doctor with a teenaged daughter Polly. Sadly, Dr. Tom Baldwin (Lee's brother) diagnosed John with a terminal illnes and John died soon afterwards from a suspected drug overdose. A vengeful Polly blamed Jessie and Tom and spread lies that they were having an affair. Jessie and Tom were arrested for John's death and put on trial, but just as it looked like they would be convicted, Phil arrived with the evidence that proved that John had comitted suicide, clearing both of them. A grateful Jessie ended up remarrying Phil but it wasn't long before Phil would return to his womanising ways - this time with Jessie's former step-daughter, Polly Prentice!

In 1969, Phil and Polly got into a car accident and Polly was killed. Fearing that he would be charged for Polly's death, Phil fled town and Jessie soon learned that he had been presumed dead in a plane crash. Jessie turned to Dr. Peter Taylor for support and the two were soon married. However, the marriage was invalidated when it emerged that Phil was alive and back in town!

Phil had been hiding out as a fugitive and sleeping with Diana Maynard until he learned that he had been cleared of any foul play in the death of Polly Prentice. Phil rushed to be reunited with Jessie but was left paralysed in a car accident. When Jessie learned that Phil was alive, she once again felt obligated to return to her wayward husband. However, Phil's accident had left Phil impotent and this contributed to the demise of Phil and Jessie's marriage. However, the actual end didn't come until Phil learned that Diana was pregnant with his baby and was marrying Peter Taylor to give the child a name! Jessie and Phil divorced for the final time.

Jessie soon found herself another young "Phil" by the name of Teddy Holmes. Teddy, a handsome newspaperman and an adventurer in the worst sense of the word, first came to General Hospital as a hepatitis patient. He immediately saw a way to exploit Jessie and her money in order to give him the independence he needed to get to the top of the literary world. Jessie invited Teddy to stay at her home during his recovery, even though friends such as Steve Hardy and Lee Baldwin tried to warn her not to trust the man.

With the death of Jessie's widowed brother, she became the guardian of his two children, Carol Murray and Kent Murray. Teddy learned that Carol was to come into a large inheritance on her eighteenth birthday and schemed to win over the young woman, even though Carol distrusted him as much as Jessie's friends. Eventually Teddy was able to win Carol over and when Teddy told Carol he was in love with her and not Jessie, Carol took the bait. When they ran away together Jessie was in shock, especially since she had co-signed a $25,000 loan for Teddy and was unable to pay it off. She turned to Lee Baldwin for help in paying off the loan.

Phil, meanwhile, had been making enemies left and right at General Hospital. One night in December 1974, Nurse Jane Dawson discovered Jessie craddling Phil's dead body, muttering "I'm sorry", over and over again. Phil had been murdered! Jessie was initially suspected of being the cluprit and turned to Lee Baldwin for support. The two kissed but decided not to resume their earlier relationship,

Jessie was cleared when Diana confessed. However Diana wasn't the culprit either: she had merely confessed as she mistakenly believed that Peter had comitted the crime and didn't want Jessie or Peter to be convicted of the murder. In the end Nurse Augusta McCleod was revealed as the woman who had killed Phil and Jessie began to move on with her life.

In 1978 Jessie took in student nurse Bobbie Spencer after she was kicked out of her nurse's hostel for sleeping with Scotty Baldwin. Jessie became Bobbie's confidant but continually warned Bobbie that she wouldn't stand for Bobbie schemes against Scotty or his girlfriend Laura Webber. Jessie proved her loyalty to Bobbie by sticking by her when Bobbie's past as a prostitute was exposed. Jessie also comforted Laura after she was raped, telling her that she wasn't dirty even though Laurafeltthat she would never be clean again.

During this time Jessie was dating Dan Rooney, an administrator at the hospital. Dan and Jessie eventually broke up and Dan began dating Ruby Anderson instead.

During the 1980s Jessie's appearances on the show became much less frequent. In 1993 when Angie Costello visited the hospital in honor of Steve Hardy's 30th anniversary, she asked after Jessie and Steve informed her that Jessie had died.