Prologue: Before the Quartermaines

Prior to 1976 General Hospital was already legendary, having been on the air over a decade, the rich tapestry was woven with cutting edge storylines for their times and bold characters which had already made history. Thirteen years of sometimes shocking and racy, provocative and also perfunctory soap opera fare preceded the advent of the Quartermaines. Leading up to the time the Quartermaines came to Port Charles many of the first generation of characters were settled down and had taken on more stable roles at General Hospital. The torch had been passed from the Taylor's to the Webber's, from the Brewer's to the Grant's, from the March, Weeks, Bennett's, Prentice, Mc Gillis, Pinkham and Adams and on to some of the names we are still familiar with to this day.

March 1976 introduced a new family to Port Charles. Terri Arnett was the widow of a Vietnam doctor and the daughter of Chief of Staff of General Hospital Steve Hardy’s best friend, the late Dr. Lars Webber, Terri was introduced as the main character, a former professional singer who had given up the stage when her parents were killed to help raise her two younger brothers, Jeff and Rick.

When Terri moved to town, she opened a supper club where she also sang. Rick was a promising young intern who had volunteered for a six month stint in Africa and been reported as dead. Younger brother, Jeff and his wife, Monica, had graduated med school that year. Steve Hardy had pegged the two for a new intern program at General Hospital for married couples: a very bold and shocking innovation at that time.

Monica had been engaged to Rick, but after his death had married little brother, Jeff. Steve had chosen them to spearhead the new experimental program for married couples thinking that they were a happily married couple, but their new marriage was a wreck. Jeff had a serious chip on his shoulder trying to follow in his over achiever big brother's footsteps, both in the residency program at General Hospital and in his relationship with Monica. Jeff’s insecurities were a major issue for the couple and affected his work at General Hospital. While Jeff loved and missed his brother terribly, he felt guilty for harboring a secret love for Monica when she was engaged to Rick and he knew that Monica would never have chosen him over Rick if Rick had lived.

Monica soon found herself fending off passes from supervising resident, Rex Pearson, When Monica rebuffed his advances, he retaliated by going after Jeff. He goaded him privately, playing on Jeff’s feelings of inadequacy about Rick concerning Monica and General Hospital. Jeff started to unravel and make small mistakes that caused Steve Hardy and the young resident’s great alarm. Jeff’s already shaky self esteem was about to take a direct hit because big brother Rick Webber was alive and being held captive by rebel forces in civil war torn Lomonda, suspected of being CIA. Shortly before his scheduled execution, he was freed when the prison was hit in a raid.

“Terri’s Place” opened to great fanfare on April 30, 1976 and among the telegrams was one from the American consulate in Lomonda City with the remarkable message: Rick Webber was alive! Thrilled to hear the news that his brother was not dead, Jeff also harbored deep trepidations. He and Monica were both understandably upset, but Monica had a secret that Rick’s return could expose. Rick (played by Michael Gregory) had not asked her to marry him; he had broken up with her! Monica had told Terri and Jeff the lie about his proposal out of desperation. She had been raised in an orphanage in St. Louis, Missouri and could not face loosing the family that her love for Rick represented. When Rick wrote to her to end their relationship, she had panicked and lied to his siblings hoping that when Rick returned she could change his mind. His impending return threatened to topple her house of cards and yet she was passionately in love with him still. Monica was in a panic!

In the meantime, during Rick's ten month incarceration, he had reconsidered his feelings for Monica and decided he was going to go home and get her back, not knowing that she had married his little brother. Rick found out that shocking news before his flight left Africa. Monica was relieved that Rick had not busted her out for her engagement lie but secretly flew to New York to meet his flight and beg him not to tell that secret to Jeff. He did not, but it didn’t take long for Jeff to find out that Monica had met Rick behind his back in New York. The Webber/Webber/Webber triangle went from sizzle to flame when that summer, Rick and Monica bonded over the death of one of her patients, Joey Galvin. They shared a passionate kiss and declared to each other that they had never stopped loving the other but then reluctantly agreed to set aside their feelings: for Jeff’s sake.

Rick’s friend and confidant, Dr Mark Dante, advised Rick that he needed to find a new woman and Rick agreed, but Monica secretly vowed to stay close to Rick. This proved difficult when Dr. Lesley Faulkner found Rick an apartment in her building. Lesley, recently widowed, swore that she and Rick were only friends, but Monica was jealous of the widow none-the-less. Monica decided that she had to divorce Jeff, but thought that in order not to alienate Rick, it had to be Jeff’s decision. So, to help Jeff come to that conclusion, Monica determined that she would not sleep with Jeff anymore.

Monica was about to have some help with the death of her marriage. Dr. Peter Taylor and his nurse wife, Diana, had hired a new nanny for their daughter Martha. Scheming Heather Grant had gotten the job with faked references with the intent of using the Taylor’s as entry in to a world of “more important people” like the sexy hunk of a doctor she met in the halls of General Hospital: Jeff Webber.

After months of chasing her married prey, Heather convinced her ex-husband, Larry Joe, to steal Monica’s purse. When he did, she found the letter that Monica had received from Rick breaking up with her and arranged for Jeff to receive it. Jeff kept the letter to himself, but was eaten up with jealousy. He began abusing drugs, taking sleeping pills at night and amphetamines in the morning to wake up and between times he stalked his wife. In an anger and drug induced rage, Jeff finally confronted Monica with the letter and his accusations that she was still in love with his brother. In a fit, he grabbed Monica and attempted roughly to initiate sex with her. She ran out and straight to Rick’s front door where she tore her clothes and threw herself in Rick’s arms, sobbing and the two gave in to their long held passions and made love. It was not the long awaited reunion that brought them back together once and for all though.

Terri had become friends with Lesley and saw that Rick and Lesley were beginning to have deep feelings for each other even though neither of them saw it. Lesley confided to Terri that she had become pregnant with her dead husband's child on the last night of his life when he had raped her and that she could not face having the child. Lesley decided to have an abortion and asked Terri not to tell Rick, but Terri did so and Rick raced after Lesley who he found in New York. She had decided to keep the baby but was deeply touched by Rick's rushing to her side.

Jeff began an affair with Heather who promised a no-strings affair and plotted to get pregnant with his child, a feat that Monica had refused to consider. Monica had not only refused to consider having a baby but had told Jeff he didn’t turn her on and that he should find a woman who did. Monica confronted Lesley and told her that she and Rick were having an affair even though the affair was quickly cooling off and clearly due to end. Heather made sure that Jeff found out about Rick and Monica’s secret assignations but regretted it when Jeff tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head with a small caliber hand gun before Heather could tell him that she was pregnant with his child.

As Jeff lay near death at General Hospital, Rick broke it off with Monica and Terri confided to her father’s best friend, Steve Hardy, that Jeff was his son. Upon Jeff’s miraculous recovery, Monica asked him to take her back and he vowed to be the man she needed. Monica agreed to try to get pregnant, but secretly continued to take her birth control. The reconciliation between Jeff and Monica was Monica’s way of staying close to Rick as she schemed to get him back.

Heather was crushed when her announcement that she was carrying Jeff’s child met with Jeff’s asking her to give the baby to him and Monica to raise. After a faked suicide attempt failed to bring Jeff to her side, Heather hatched a plan to tell Jeff she had aborted the child, then to have it in secret and sell it to Peter and Diana Taylor for $10,000.00. Monica finally asked Jeff for a divorce when she found out that Rick and Lesley were engaged.

Desperate, Monica confronted Lesley and threatened to use secrets she knew about Rick to ruin his career if Lesley married him, causing a distraught Lesley to plunge down the stairs. Lesley lost the baby and fled to Venice, but returned to marry Rick. With his personal life temporarily stable, Rick turned to his long term goal of a new cardiac wing for General Hospital and contacted The Hardwick Foundation. Dr. Alan Quartermaine came to Port Charles to determine if he and his foundation would foot the bill for the new wing. Monica Bard Webber landed the plum assignment of assisting the handsome and wealthy ex-surgeon and was immediately smitten with the handsome, wealthy financier son of Lila and Edward Quartermaine.

General Hospital was about to meet its new core family. At this time the established family's like The Hardy's were happily married and doing administrative work, Jessie Brewer (who ended up fading into the back drop at the nurses station alone after her whole family was decimated) was dispensing advise and telling the nurses to "get back to work, this is a hospital not a brothel" and The Taylor's had met their end in the form of deviant Heather Webber who would finish them off in the years to come. It happened almost by accident.