Dr. Phil Brewer and Nurse Jessie Murray are former fictional characters and divorced couple from the original ABC Daytime soap opera, General Hospital.
Both original cast members, Phil was most notably portrayed by Roy Thinnes and Martin West, and Jessie was most notably portrayed by Emily McLaughlin.
Storylines[]
In 1963, Nurse Jessie Murray was married to Dr. Phillip "Phil" Brewer, a dashing young internist, who was seven years her junior. Benevolent Jessie sacrificed to help him become a prominent cardiologist. Phil was an excellent doctor but a philandering husband. He had quite the roving eye and engaged in an affair with Cynthia Allison, a patient who went to college with him. Jessie could take no more and filed for divorce in 1964. Then Jessie found out she was pregnant. Phil decided to save his marriage and left Cynthia for Jessie. Unfortunately, Jessie miscarried.
After the miscarriage Phil and Jessie split up again. In 1965, while waiting for the final divorce papers to arrive, an inebriated Phil raped Jessie and she became pregnant again. Their child, Nancy Brewer was born with a terminal heart ailment, and the brilliant surgeon could do nothing to prevent his child's death. To end this darkened tale, Jessie and Phil were finally divorced.
Phil and Jessie reunited after he helped to prove her late husband Dr. John Prentice, who'd been terminally ill, had committed suicide. He and Jessie were remarried, but their marriage ended yet again. This time Phil was accused of murdering John's daughter Polly Prentice, with whom he had had an affair. They were in a car crash where Polly lost her life and the baby she claimed was Phil's. He fled Port Charles and was later presumed killed in a plane crash.
In 1971, Jessie and Phil Brewer's third reunion turned out to be a dismal failure. Phil found out that Nurse Diana Maynard had married Dr. Peter Taylor in order to give her son (Tracy Taylor) by Phil a name, and Phil and Jessie broke up yet again.
One night in 1974, Nurse Jane Dawson found Jessie Brewer hugging Phil's lifeless body. "I'm sorry," Jessie kept saying over and over. Phil was dead!
Phil had a string of enemies, but it was Jessie who was ultimately charged with his murder. The blunt instrument that was used to deliver the fatal blow was never recovered. Just before Jessie's trial was about to begin, Diana Taylor suddenly confessed that she killed Phil Brewer. She turned over a blood stained geode to the police. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced.
