Who Is General Hospital's Ethan Lovett?
The legendary Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) and former con artist Holly Sutton (Emma Samms) are the parents of grifter Ethan Lovett on "General Hospital." Australian-born Nathan Parsons played the role from 2009 to 2012 and he's returned to Port Charles a few times over the years too. The most recent visit was in 2020 for Luke's memorial. Recently, Ethan has come back again and is now being played by James Ryan.
Luke owned a ship called The Haunted Star, and one day he caught Ethan trying to rob it, but he was really searching for his biological parents. Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Elliot) and Luke thought Ethan was likely his son, but a DNA test proved otherwise. However, Luke felt Tracy altered the test, so he had his daughter, Lulu Spencer (then Julie Marie Berman), make a play for Ethan causing Tracy to confess that she'd sabotaged it. Ethan and Lulu later worked together to rescue Luke who had been kidnapped by the evil Helena Cassadine (Constance Towers).
After that, Ethan met a woman named Rebecca Shaw (Natalia Livingston), the spitting image of the wealthy Emily Quartermaine (also Livingston), and the two concocted a scheme to get some of the Quartermaine fortune, which ultimately failed. Ethan then defended Kristina Davis (Lexi Ainsworth) from her boyfriend, Kiefer Bauer (Christian Alexander), who was abusing her. Kristina liked Ethan, but he only wanted to be friends. Ethan took Kristina to General Hospital after learning she'd been beaten up, but she claimed he did it.
Ethan was romantically involved with both Kristina and Maya
Ethan was later arrested after Kiefer was run over by an unknown driver, but the charges were dropped when Kristina's mother, Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn), admitted she'd killed Kiefer. Ethan and Maya Ward (Annie Ilonzeh) soon got involved and the two went to Las Vegas with Luke and Tracy. The next day Ethan and Maya realized they'd got married, but they eventually divorced because she was cheating on him.
Helena then ordered her daughter, Irina Cassadine (Alyshia Ochse), to kill Ethan. But Irina and Ethan started to fall for each other, so she went against her mother's orders — which resulted in Helena having her assassinated. Ethan held Irina while she was dying and almost got killed himself by Helena until Holly intervened, claiming he was Robert's son, not Luke's. Robert was distraught when he believed his daughter, Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough), was dead, so Luke went along with Holly's ruse to make Robert feel better.
Ethan later skipped town so that Robert would believe Helena kidnapped him, and he and Holly left in pursuit. When Lulu was kidnapped, Luke and Laura went after her and found Ethan. When the trio caught up to her, Helena gave Laura the option to shoot Luke or Ethan. Laura wouldn't do it and gave the gun to Luke instead. A gunfight ensued, Helena and her minions were killed, and Luke told Ethan to escape and remain in hiding.
Shockingly it was Tracy who ultimately saved Ethan's life
In 2015, Luke and Laura's old enemy, Frank Smith (Joe Cortese), kidnapped Ethan. Holly, Lulu, and Dillon Quartermaine (Robert Palmer Watkins) joined them and the group eventually found him. Frank and his lackeys held guns on them, shooting Ethan in the arm, but Luke soon dispatched his nemesis once and for all. Meanwhile, Holly was presumed dead in 2020, but Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) didn't believe it and headed to Monte Carlo, alongside Olivia Falconeri (Lisa LoCicero), where they stumbled across Ethan, who wanted to locate his mother's killer.
They never found Holly, having no clue she was imprisoned there the whole time. Ethan came clean with Robert about Luke being his real father and the two made peace about the lie. Ethan didn't return to Port Charles, however, claiming he needed to be somewhere abroad. Holly was able to make her way back in 2022 and she told Robert that Victor Cassadine (Charles Shaughnessy) had captured Ethan, forcing Holly to follow his instructions or her son would be killed.
Together with Felicia Scorpio (Kristina Wagner), Holly faked a near-fatal injury, thereby taking her out of Victor's villainous equation. Then, in 2023, while searching for Victor — who had kidnapped several people — Felicia ran into Holly in Venezuela. There, they discovered Ethan (now new actor James Ryan) was being auctioned off with the winner having the joy of killing him. Fortunately, Tracy won the bidding, and Ethan was once again rescued.