Jasper Jacks
| Jasper Jacks | |||||||||||||||
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| General Hospital character | |||||||||||||||
| File:Jasper jack.jpg Ingo Rademacher as Jasper Jacks | |||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Ingo Rademacher Giden Emery (Temp January 2008) | ||||||||||||||
| First appearance | January 1996 | ||||||||||||||
| Created by | Claire Labine | ||||||||||||||
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Jasper "Jax" Jacks is a fictional character from the ABC soap opera General Hospital. He has been played by actor Ingo Rademacher from January 1996 to August 2000 and returned since August 2001. On January 14, January 17, and January 22, 2008, the role of Jasper Jacks was played by Gideon Emery.
Character history
Jax is originally from Australia, but he and his family moved to Alaska. When Lois Cerullo needed a corporate raider to get her company back from Edward Quartermaine, she went to Jax. Jax immediately became interested in Lois, but she was happily married to her husband Ned (Edward's grandson), so she introduced him to Brenda Barrett. Brenda wanted Jax to help make her mobster boyfriend, Sonny Corinthos, jealous, and Jax went along with it as a way to spend time with Brenda. The two became attracted to each other; the only problem was that Brenda was still in love with Sonny. Jax proposed to Brenda and she accepted having realized there was no hope left for her and Sonny.
Jax and Brenda married on his private yacht, and when they returned to Port Charles they planned to renew their vows in a ceremony at the Quartermaine mansion. Jax secretly was working with Ned's mother, Tracy Quartermaine to take over ELQ. That secret was revealed, and Jax backed off from working with Tracy. On the day that Jax and Brenda were to renew their vows, Brenda realized that she truly loved Jax and that he was the one she belonged with. Unfortunately, Sonny appeared at the wedding with Jax's presumed dead wife, Miranda. Jax had assumed that Miranda had died when she was in a building that had been bombed, but Jax's parents knew the truth. Miranda's face had been badly disfigured after the explosion, and Miranda did not want to burden Jax, so she let him think she was dead. Jax was torn between Miranda and Brenda, but ultimately realized he wanted Brenda. However, by this time Brenda had reunited with Sonny.
When Sonny left Brenda at the altar, Jax was by Brenda's side and they eventually became engaged. Jax lost Brenda again when her mother, who was mentally ill, drove both Brenda and herself over a cliff, apparently "killing" them both. On the day of Brenda's funeral, Jax was arrested. As it turned out, Jax's father and brother, Jerry had started their company with money they received from the Morino organized crime family, who were rivals of Sonny. Jax lost everything. However, with the help of his friends, V, Ned, and Alexis Davis, Jax managed to win a large sum of money in Monte Carlo, and started to rebuild his empire.
On the night of AJ and Carly's engagement party, Jax met fashion designer Chloe Morgan (a distant cousin of Lila Morgan Quartermaine, and the two immediately hit it off. When a ballroom dance act didn't show up to perform at the Nurses' Ball, Jax and Chloe stepped in and delighted the audience. Then Chloe got a call from her business manager reminding her that if she was not married in a month she would lose her company. Ned Ashton stepped in and asked Chloe to marry him; Chloe agreed. So Ned and Chloe, along with Jax and Alexis Davis, flew to Las Vegas. The only problem was that Chloe's Aunt Gertrude showed up claiming that this Vegas wedding did not comply with the legal definition of "happily married", as it was stated in the will. So to cover the whole thing up, Jax and Alexis married. To make it appear that Ned and Chloe's impending marriage was real, Jax and Alexis needed to make it appear as though their marriage was also real. They even went as far as to move Alexis into his penthouse. Alexis and Jax became good friends while they were married, but his heart belonged to Chloe all the while. After a romantic courtship, they proclaimed their love. Shortly after, Chloe was struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run by Helena Cassadine, meant for Alexis. Chloe was rendered blind from her injuries, but surgery restored her sight. When the mixed pairs divorced after Gertrude caught Jax and Chloe together, Jax moved Chloe into his penthouse and took over Gertrude's company, allowing Chloe to design under her own name again. Unfortunately, she learned that she had a rapidly growing tumor near her optic nerve. Jax nurtured Chloe through her illness and intended to marry her. Knowing that Chloe was in need of medication, Helena bought the drug company that manufactured it in an attempt to blackmail Jax into bed. Jax pretended to take the bait and then swiftly tied Helena up and electronically purchased the drug company. He then left with the drug sample that Helena had in her possession. Helena was impressed but unapologetic. When Chloe began having visions of how Helena had killed Stefan, Jax took her away on a tropical vacation. Helena followed them and attempted to kill Chloe. She was unsuccessful and escaped without detection.
One day, Jax spotted a picture in a magazine of someone who appeared to be Brenda. Unbeknownst to Jax, it was a set up by Stefan Cassadine to force Jax to leave Chloe. After he took the bait, Stefan planned to kidnap Chloe and use her psychic abilities from her brain tumor to bring down his mother, Helena, with whom he was embroiled in a feud. The plan worked beautifully and Jax broke Chloe's heart to leave Port Charles and go off in search of his former love.
While searching for Brenda, Jax hired and had an affair with professional tracker Angel Ellis. Angel introduced Jax to Kristina Carter, who had hired Angel to find her sister. Jax realized that Kristina and his ex-wife, Alexis Davis, were sisters, so Jax brought Kristina to Port Charles. There Jax dealt with his sudden desertion of Chloe Morgan. After filling Chloe in on the truth surrounding his abrupt desertion of her, she wanted nothing more to do with him and he realized that he wanted more for her than he could give her, but remained protective of her. When Chloe was murdered by Stavros, Jax firmly believed Stefan was the murderer. However, to protect Kristina and Alexis, Jax joined forces with the "good" Cassadines (Alexis and Nikolas) to bring down the "bad" Cassadines (Helena and Stavros).
After Helena and Stavros were dealt with, Jax, who had been buying up huge amounts of Cassadine properties, sold them back at his cost to the Cassadine estate. He then turned his attention to the ruination of the Quartermaines. With the assistance of Skye Chandler and AJ Quartermaine, Jax obtained controlling interest in ELQ. Finally, Jax had to deal with his longtime nemesis, Sonny Corinthos. Jax decided to back Carly, Sonny's ex-wife, in her new club venture. He also was able to obtain condemnation notices on most of Sonny's properties in Port Charles. But while Jax toppled financial empires, he began to fall for Skye Chandler-Quartermaine.
Jax initially disliked Skye, although this did not stop Skye from trying to get Jax to help her go after Sonny. He refused and continually tried to warn her off of getting entangled with Sonny. Sexual tension slowly developed between them despite repeated arguments and setbacks in their growing partnership. When he suspected her of developing feelings for him, Jax informed Skye that he didn't feel capable of ever falling in love again. She took this as a challenge and continually found ways to get Jax to come to her aid by pretending to be a damsel in distress. But her plans nearly backfired when she got locked in the boathouse for real. Believing that no one would come to find her, including Jax whom she had recently argued with, she swam for shore. Jax discovered her half-frozen on the shore and took her to the lake house to care for her. He used body heat to warm her and they made love.
When AJ ran off with Sonny's sister, Courtney Matthews, Skye implored Jax to help her get to AJ before Sonny could. But they were too late, although no harm came to AJ at that point. Jax and Sonny soon got distracted by Carly's sudden disappearance and possible death when her car ran off a cliff. When Jax wanted to shut down Carly's club, Skye told him that Carly would rather it be kept open and that it would be a way to keep her spirit alive. When Carly was discovered to be alive, Skye speculated that Carly faked the accident. Jax began to believe Skye and confronted Carly about it. She vehemently denied it and told Jax not to contact her until he remembered how to be a friend.
However, Carly and Jax's partnership ended, when Jax discovered Carly was embezzling money from the club for her fertility treatments. To keep Jax from going to the cops, Carly was forced to give up her share of the club, which Jax then gave to Skye. But Jax didn't realize that Skye was double-crossing him with Edward in order to become the sole heir to the Quartermaine fortune. When Edward threatened to reveal Skye's misdeeds to Jax, she fought him and he had a stroke. When Ned discovered Skye's contract with Edward, he forced her to tell Jax the truth. Jax felt very betrayed and coldly dumped her. Skye got drunk, blacked out, and woke up to discover Edward's respirator unplugged, she feared the worst and went into hiding. He rescued her and eventually forgave her. They resumed their engagement and wedding plans.
On Jax and Skye's wedding night, a ghost from Jax's past revealed herself: a very much alive Brenda. She had survived the car crash and had been rescued by a passing ship. The owner of the ship, arms dealer Luis Alcazar, had then kept her for himself for the past four years, promising to keep her from hurting herself and her loved ones by keeping her away from Port Charles. But Brenda wanted to return to Port Charles to see those she loved one last time. She also wanted to leave Luis. Jax postponed his honeymoon with Skye to help protect Brenda from Luis. While doing so, Jax was shot by Luis and left paralyzed. Feeling sorry for himself, he pushed Skye away. When she refused to leave him, Jax got Brenda to help him by pretending to be in love with him still. She also seemed to help him in his recovery. Skye was suspicious of Brenda and did some digging. She found out that Brenda wasn't actually dying of a mental illness, but she kept that fact to herself. When Jax found out on his own that Brenda wasn't dying, he confronted Skye and she admitted knowing already. Jax dumped Skye for her games and her lies. Jax told Brenda that she was not dying and they reunited.
The night of Jax and Brenda's engagement party thrown by the Quartermaines, Luis and Skye crashed the party and were snubbed by their former lovers. Later that evening, Luis was thrown off the balcony of his hotel suite to his death, and Brenda was one of the prime suspects, thanks in part to Skye's "eyewitness" account of the murder. Jax did everything he could to prevent her from going to jail, including hiring Alexis to defend her and even confessing to the crime himself. Brenda was found guilty along with Jason Morgan and sentenced to jail, they were released, when new evidence pointed to other suspects. Jason and Brenda got an annulment and Jax forged full steam ahead with his plans to marry Brenda. But when it came time for Jax to say "I do", he said "I don't". The night before Carly had caught Sonny and Brenda kissing, Carly then told Jax. He believed that Brenda could never love him completely. Humiliated, Brenda left town. Jax tried to console his broken heart with random women, even call girls.
When Sonny began to suspect Jax of secretly partnering with Faith against him, Sonny taunted Jax to come and kill him at a warehouse. Jax called the cops instead. Later he convinced Jason that he would go after Sonny overtly without a partner. Jax rescued Skye once again when Tracy came to town with the juicy tidbit that Skye wasn't a Quartermaine after all. Jax tried to charm Tracy to tell the truth, which earned him a slap from Skye for enjoying his work a little too much. Jax tried to rescue Skye one last time by persuading Ned to offer her a job at ELQ, but she inadvertently sabotaged it. Later she thanked him for his help and wished that they could recapture what they once had. She tried to persuade him to have a baby with her, but he turned her down and left town for a while.
He returned in October 2003 hot on the trail of the Dead Man's Hand, which were the 5 cards that Wild Bill Hickok held in his last hand of poker the night he was shot dead. Jax was after the cards because his father had possession of them for the greater part of his life and believed them to be his lucky charm. But someone had stolen the cards from him and John subsequently lost the will to live without the cards. So Jax began the search for the missing cards. Along the way he ran into a tough brunette named Samantha McCall. Sam also wanted the cards but for the opposite reason. Her family had also had possession of the cards at one time and considered them to be the cause of a string of bad luck. So Sam wanted to find the cards and destroy them. Together, Jax and Sam figured out that the cards were stolen by someone from Port Charles. Once there, they narrowed their search to A.J. Quartermaine, who had the other four cards and swiftly figured out that Sam and Jax knew something about the last card. Caught sneaking into the Quartermaine mansion, Jax and Sam were forced to pretend to be a couple. Sam nearly blew their cover by going on to claim to be an heiress, which was far from the truth. Jax made a bet with Sam with the cards as the prize that she couldn't convince anyone that she was an heiress. Of course, she lost. The two constantly fought over the few cards in their possession as the sexual tension between them continually built up. Jax thought he had finally gotten the cards when Luke auctioned them off at the Halloween party, but shortly after wiring the money to Luke the auction crowd was gassed and a mystery person stole the cards. The person turned out to be a former lover of Sam's who tried to bargain one night of sex with her for the cards. Jax finally obtained the cards once and for all and headed off to show them to his father. Sam managed to stow away in his car and persuaded him to let her test the true luck of the cards at a casino along the way. The pair also finally gave into their passion and made love. Jax finally made it to his father's death bed, but just as he was about to show him the cards, John breathed his last breath and died. Devastated, Jax pushed Sam away, blaming her for making him waste time in getting the cards to his father. Jax had also discovered that Sam had rigged his rental car to breakdown. To get her back, he paired up with Tracy Quartermaine, who had recently returned to town, to use Sam and get the cards back to open a new casino. But it quickly became a question of who was double-crossing whom as Sam agreed to screw over Jax and get the cards to Luke so that HE could open a casino on the newly-returned Haunted Star ship.
2005-2006
Jax started to date Sonny's half-sister Courtney Matthews and they had a sex bet where if Courtney could resist sleeping with Jax she would win $10 million. Courtney won the bet but soon afterward they did have sex. Jax chose to ignore that Courtney was still in love with her ex-husband, Jason and asked her to marry him. Soon after the wedding, Courtney pleaded with Jax to agree to a surrogate. They decided on Liz but Courtney became jealous because Jax cared more about his unborn child. Since Courtney felt Jax wasn't paying her enough attention, she started to have a friendship with Nikolas Cassadine which started to bloom into romance. Courtney insisted to Jax she was not unfaithful, however later she did sleep with Nikolas. Courtney learned that she was pregnant and either Jax or Nikolas could be the father. Unbeknownst to Courtney, Jax managed to change the paternity tests twice. Jax decided he wanted Courntey back but was unsuccessful; she wanted to be with Nikolas.
Courtney had her son in February 2006 but she died shortly thereafter, never having a chance to hold her son. Jax confessed to Courtney that he changed the paternity results before she died. However, he continued to lie after her death. Jax thought it was his duty to protect the baby from the Cassadine's despite his best friend, Alexis being a Cassadine. Following, Courtney's death, Carly and Jax started to bond. Carly felt it was her duty to keep Courtney's memory alive for her baby. Carly and Jax decide to start dating. Carly soon found out that Jax was not the father and that it went against what Courtney wanted but she didn't care. She convinced Jax to keep up the lie and even went to the hospital to change the DNA test. Robin found out the truth about the baby and struggled whether or not to tell the truth. She eventually told the truth and Carly blamed her. Jax did not but their friendship never recovered. Jax left town so Carly and the boys could see their cousin.
When Jax returned, Carly and Jax reunited and got engaged. They were planning to marry in November 2006 but decide to give their wedding to Luke and Laura Spencer's vow renewal ceremony. They were planning to their wedding on New Year's Eve but Jax's brother called and Carly told Jax to go to him.
2006-present
Jax returned to find Carly married to Sonny Corinthos after seeing her ex-husband shooting Lorenzo Alcazar in the head. Carly was forced to marry her ex-husband. Following the hostage crisis at the Metro Court, Sonny and Carly slept together, which Jax overhead upon arriving back in PC. Jax was devastated but resolved to fight Sonny for Carly. Carly was torn and eventually chose Jax but not before giving Sonny one last kiss. Carly and Sonny divorced in May 2007. Carly and Jax were married the day after the divorce was final. After returning from their honeymoon, Jax found out that his brother Jerry was the person who held the Metro Court hostage. Jax decided to cover for his brother and made excuses for what Jerry did. Jax and Carly were at odds over Jerry but Carly did agree to keep silent on Jerry's true identity for now. Jerry sent Jax left thinking that his brother was in danger but Jerry sent him on a wild goosechase so he could bond with Carly. Jax was finally found being kidnapped by Jerry's lover Irina and repeatedly raped and assaulted, forced to sleep with her twice. It is unclear whether Jax's experiences will have long-term repercussions on his relationship with Carly.
Upon his return to Port Charles Jax and Carly reunited and expected to pick up life where they left off. They must now decide what to do to keep their family safe from Sonny's enemy Anthony Zacchara.
Jax has become a close friend to Kate Howard and is starting a magazine with her. Kate seems to trust Jax almost more than anyone in Port Charles as she has not only told him that she used to be Connie Falconeri and about her past with Sonny, but also that there is a reason why Connie Falconeri can't be found. Something she has even yet to tell Sonny.
Carly and Jax decided to have a baby, but due to Carly's past miscarriage, it was going to be difficult. On February 05, 2008, Carly Jacks and Jax discovered that they were pregnant.
On March 2008, Carly's son Michael ran away from Port Charles after accidentally shooting Kate Howard. Michael finally returns to Port Charles and calls Carly to let her know that he is okay. Carly goes to see Michael at a waterfront warehouse and both are happy to see each other. Immediately after they meet, the warehouse explodes. The explosives were later determined to be planted by the recently-deceased Diego Alcazar as an act of revenge for the death of his father, Lorenzo Alacazar. Carly is rescued by Sonny's half-brother, Ric Lansing, and she is taken to General Hospital suffering from hypothermia. Claudia Zacchara visits Carly in the hospital and threatens Carly and her family unless Carly forces Sonny to back-down against Claudia's younger brother, Johnny Zacchara. The stress of Claudia's threats coupled with her recent trauma from the warehouse explosion, cause Carly to miscarry. Dr. Kelly Lee informs Carly and Jax that they can try to have another baby when they are ready.
Jax and Kate have started a business partnership, making Carly jealous.
Jax's step-son, Michael Corinthos III, was shot in the head and was put into General Hospital. Carly and Sonny fight over custody. Carly goes to a place where she regrets not letting A.J be a father to Michael. Jax asks doctors from Berlin come to examine Michael. Jax is thinking of adopting Morgan Stone Corinthos, his other step-son, and he wants Sonny away fron his children.
Jax went to Rome intending to visit Brenda but he never went through with it. When Jax came back both he and Carly realized that their marriage is on the rocks. Carly told him that Sonny signed over all his rights to both Michael and Morgan.
Jax left Carly in July 2008 when Kate Howard set it up to make it appear Carly deliberately caused Jax to miss a meeting, but Jax reconciled with Carly after he realized Kate lied to him.
Jax finally found out about Carly sleeping with Sonny in May after they'd placed Micheal in the facility. He is terribly hurt and leaves her again. Carly begs him not to go. He comes back later to find the nanny alone and finds out Carly took Morgan and left town.
Carly later walked in on her estranged husband having sex with his business partner Kate Howard after her breakup with Sonny. Jasper believes that Carly's heart will only belong with her other ex-husband Sonny Corinthos, with whom she shares children. Later, Jax apologies and he and Carly reconcile. Jax promises he'd never end up with Kate again, but hires Olivia Falconari at the Metro Court. Upset, Carly offers to sell her shares of the Metro Court to Nikolas Cassadine and Jax finding out Nikolas planned to buy them bought Spoon Island from the Cassadine's. Carly relented in selling to Nikolas when Olivia assured her she wouldn't allow Jax to use her nor manipulate her as revenge against Carly. Later, the couple headed to divorce court with Diane Miller as Carly's lawyer and Alexis Davis as Jax lawyers. During processing Carly and Jax realized they still loved each other and stulled their divorce. They opt to attempt to date and fix the problems in their marriage, mostly against the advising of their lawyers.
References
- ^ "Daily Recap 2009". abc.com. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
- ^ "Daily recap 2009". abc.com. Retrieved 2009-01-18.