Gwen Hotchkiss

Soap opera character
File:Liza Huber.jpg
Gwen Hotchkiss Winthrop
Address	somewhere outside of Harmony
Date of birth	1975
Gender	Female
Parents	Jonathan Hotchkiss (father) Rebecca (mother)
Married	Ethan Winthrop (married December 19, 2002; filed for divorce)
Children	Sarah Winthrop (October 8, 2003, with Ethan; stillborn) Nathan Winthrop (November 8, 2004, with Ethan; medical abortion)
Occupation	Businesswoman
Portrayer	Liza Huber (1999 — 2000; 2002 — present) Natalie Zea (2000 — 2002)

Gwen Hotchkiss Winthrop is a fictional character on NBC's daytime drama, Passions. Gwen has been played by both Liza Huber (1999-2000; 2002-2007) and Natalie Zea (2000-2002).

Character history

Pre-Show

Born in Harmony, Gwen Hotchkiss grew up in a small town outside of Harmony (in a different state) as the only child of Jonathan and Rebecca Hotchkiss. Her father was not subtle in showing his disappointment over the fact that his only child was a girl, and, as a result, Gwen spent most of her life trying to prove to him that she was just as good as the son that he never had.

At the age of twelve, Gwen met Ethan Crane at a mixer that their boarding schools had, and became fast friends, soon boyfriend and girlfriend. They later went on to attend the same prestigious high school, though they attended separate colleges.

1999

After Ethan graduated from law school,he returned to Harmony to work for his family's conglomerate, Crane Industries. Ethan thought he would one day take control of the Crane empire. Though Ethan assured her of his love for her, Gwen began to fear that Ethan did not love her the way she loved him and was only marrying her to please their families. Though he eventually proposed marriage after a talk with his aunt, Gwen turned his proposal down, explaining that she wanted him to propose because he was madly in love with her and not because he felt he needed to.

Despite this mutual disappointment, the two did eventually become engaged when Gwen proposed to Ethan and Gwen began planning their wedding.

2000

Unfortunately for Gwen, Ethan soon realized he was in love with his mother's assistant and their wedding planner, Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald. Theresa had been in love with Ethan since childhood. Ethan told Gwen on the eve of their wedding and they postponed their nuptials. Gwen was angry to realize that she had been right about Theresa'a motivations the entire time and went to Theresa's home to confront her. Later, Gwen composed herself and proposed that Ethan date both her and Theresa and decide which he of them he truly wanted to marry. She promised she would accept his decision, but all along she felt he would discover that Theresa, from a working class background, would not fit in as a Crane. Ethan chose Theresa and proposed to Theresa at Midnight Mass. Gwen's mother Rebecca was furious and vowed revenge against Theresa and promised Gwen they would stop the Ethan from marrying Theresa. Gwen agreed to go along with Rebecca's plans because she believed that Theresa was manipulating Ethan and only wanted him for his money.

2001

Gwen's mother Rebecca came to her with a plan to oust Ivy Crane and destroy Theresa in the process by finding something scandalous about Ivy. Gwen agreed to assist in her mother search through Ivy's personal things, looking for anything that could destroy Ivy's marriage. They found the news that Ethan was really Sam Bennett's son and not Julian Crane's, and Rebecca copied the information from Ivy's laptop onto a disc. Theresa had known for months and had been keeping it secret. Gwen reluctantly agreed to Rebecca's plan to reveal the truth about Ethan's paternity by sending the information to a sleazy tabloid, but their plan failed, and Gwen was left guilt-ridden over how she'd hurt Ethan. Ethan still remained with his fiancée, however, and Gwen realized that she had lost Ethan for good and decided to move on with her life.

2002

Devastated after Theresa's lies about what happened in Bermuda, where Theresa had become drunk and married Julian Crane, becoming pregnant with his child, Ethan slowly began renewing his friendship with Gwen. On the night that Theresa confessed to Julian's murder, Gwen and Ethan became lovers again, although they were still just friends. After Julian was proven alive and well, Ethan bought an engagement ring for Gwen, but began wavering toward Theresa again.

Realizing that Ethan would choose Theresa again to marry, Gwen decided the time had come for her to get on with her life and accepted a job in New York. However, after learning that she was pregnant, Ethan convinced Gwen that he loved her and wanted to be with his child and her, and she agreed to marry him. The couple was married on December 19, 2002, despite Theresa's attempts to prevent Ethan from marrying Gwen.

2003

When Gwen began experiencing problems during her pregnancy, she and Ethan flew to Los Angeles to be under the care of a prenatal specialist, Dr. Abel. Unbeknownst to them, however, Theresa had also flown to LA, unaware of the Winthrops' presence there. While Gwen stayed in the hospital, Ethan unknowingly got into bed with Theresa. As they slept, the two former lovers kissed passionately!

After seeing television footage of Ethan and Theresa kissing on the beach, Gwen's stress level dramatically rose, and she left the hospital looking to find Ethan, wanting to reassure herself that nothing was going on. An encounter with Theresa at the hotel pool resulted in Gwen being rushed to the hospital, where a heartbroken and guilt-ridden Ethan was given a choice -- either save his wife, or his unborn child. Though Theresa told him that the Church taught them to save the child, Ethan chose his wife, and Ethan and Gwen's daughter, Sarah, was stillborn on October 8, 2003.

Gwen was devastated to wake up and find her baby dead in a bassinet. After remembering the events that had transpired earlier that night, Gwen attacked Theresa with a bedpan and threw her wedding ring back at Ethan, telling the two that she wanted nothing more to do with them. Ethan and Gwen eventually reconciled, however, after Ethan made a promise on Sarah's coffin that he would never again leave Gwen for Theresa.

Rebecca, meanwhile, began hatching a plan to make Theresa pay for Sarah's death. Engaged to Julian, the father of Theresa's son, Little Ethan, she had her fiancé sue for custody of the boy after calling Child Protection Services on Theresa.

2004

Ethan and Gwen were devastated to learn that the fight in LA and Sarah's subsequent stillbirth had rendered Gwen infertile. Desperate to be a mother, Gwen went along with her mother's plan to adopt Little Ethan. When Theresa went to court to have her abilities to be a parent determined, an unbiased judge stripped her of her rights after she attacked Gwen and Rebecca in the court even though he had initially ruled in her favor. In April they adopted Little Ethan as their son, renaming him Ethan Winthrop Jr. The couple also began making plans to hire a surrogate mother to carry their child for them.

After selecting a woman named Heather Downs to carry their child, Ethan and Gwen believed that nothing could go wrong for them. Theresa, however, proved them wrong when she drugged Heather and locked her in a closet, then had herself implanted with Ethan and Gwen's embryo in an effort to use their child as a means of extortion to regain custody of Little Ethan. Though Ethan and Gwen were furious, they eventually agreed to drop their objection to Theresa's pregnancy only when they discovered that Gwen's eggs were damaged; it was nothing short of a miracle that Theresa was still pregnant. The three then signed a contract as to their intentions for the welfare of the children, and Theresa moved into the mansion for the duration of her pregnancy.

Though Gwen was thrilled to learn that Theresa was carrying twins, that joy turned to sorrow when the doctors discovered that Theresa could not carry both babies to term. Though Theresa initially refused to abort one of the babies, Ethan and Gwen's pleas eventually changed her mind, and agreed to allow the doctors to abort the weaker child, a boy Ethan and Gwen had planned to name Nathan. It was less than a month later, however, that Theresa went into premature labor and on December 2, 2004 gave birth to a baby girl who Theresa named Jane (after Jane Eyre).

Gwen was terrified for her newborn daughter, and was eager to see her in the NICU. However, she was horrified to learn that Theresa had drugged and raped Ethan after mistakenly believing that she had miscarried Ethan and Gwen's child, and that the baby girl's biological mother could have been either Theresa or Gwen. DNA testing showed Ethan and Theresa to be the little girl's biological parents, and Gwen, after a reaction to a sedative an on-call doctor had given her, lost touch with reality and stabbed Theresa in the back with a scalpel.

2005

Gwen, despite her insanity, was arrested and sent to jail for attempted murder. Ethan, understanding that his wife was in need of psychiatric assistance, went to Theresa and begged her to drop the charges; she agreed, but changed her mind after finding out that Gwen's attack had left her paralyzed. Gwen remained in jail, where she hallucinated of a life with Ethan and their three children - Sarah, Nathan, and Ashley. Later, after "hearing" her newborn daughter's cries, Gwen cut her wrists with shards of a mirror so that she could be rushed to the hospital and kill Theresa.

At the hospital, Gwen again attacked Theresa for trying to steal her baby and was furious when Theresa declared that Jane was her daughter. Gwen was recaptured, but, after being left alone, she kidnapped Jane and drove to one of the Crane cabins in Ethan's car. Rebecca, desperate to keep her daughter out of jail, arranged to get Gwen and Jane, whom Gwen was referring to as Ashley, onto one of the Crane jets. Unbeknownst to Rebecca, however, that particular Crane jet had been arranged to carry Katherine to a top-secret Crane compound somewhere in the Atlantic.

At the compound, Katherine, Gwen, Jane, and later Fox, who had launched an attempt to rescue Jane, miserably, were held captive by the evil Alistair Crane until Ethan and Theresa arrived to rescue the four. Before leaving, however, Ethan was forced once more to make a choice between the two women, and he again chose Gwen. The six returned to Harmony, where Gwen regained touch with reality. She was saddened, however, to learn that she and Ethan had lost custody of Little Ethan thanks to a loophole in Theresa's surrogacy contract. She wanted Ethan to sue for custody of Jane as they had planned, but Ethan refused in order to protect Gwen, creating a truce between the two women: Theresa would not press charges against Gwen if Ethan and Gwen did not sue for custody of Jane. He warned Theresa, though, that if she continued her vendetta against his wife that he would take Jane from her as he had originally planned.

Theresa, crazed in her desire to win Ethan back, broke the truce and pressed charges against Gwen, despite Ethan's threats to sue for custody of Jane. Ethan won Gwen's case, however, by proving that his wife had had a reaction to the combination of a sedative given to her by one of the on-call doctors and other medication that she was on, and he and Gwen immediately sued for custody of Jane. The judge, disgusted by the method by which Jane had been conceived, ruled in favor of Ethan and Gwen, and the couple was given temporary custody of the baby.

Ethan, Gwen, and Jane lived somewhat peacefully in the mansion until Theresa allied herself with Alistair and moved in as his guest. The two decided that they would move out of Ethan's childhood home, taking Jane with them, but Alistair refused to allow this, threatening to sever Ethan's contract with Crane Industries and freeze all of their accounts held in Crane-owned banks. The situation grew even more dire when Theresa married Alistair and, upon discovering the magnitude of her miscalculation, repeatedly attempted to kill him, the final time by poisoning his guacamole. In a true twist of fate, Ethan wound up ingesting the laced dip instead, and fell into a coma.

Gwen was faced with the most difficult decision of her life when Dr. Russell informed her that Ethan's test results showed that he was in a permanent coma and would never regain consciousness. After locating Ethan's living will, Gwen decided to terminate her husband's life support. Receiving the support of Ethan's family, Gwen prepared to remove Ethan from life support - until she discovered that Theresa, assisted by an unknown man, had kidnapped Ethan. The police found the two at one of the Crane cabins weeks later, and Gwen was horrified to discover that Ethan's half-brother, Noah, and half-sister, Fancy, had aided Theresa in her crime. The three were arrested, and the still-comatose Ethan and Gwen returned to the hospital.

On Christmas Eve, Gwen decided to postpone the removal of Ethan's life support, pointing out that the Christmas season would be miserable for Jane if she had the knowledge that her father had died that time of the year. This choice proved to be the wisest of Gwen's life, for Ethan emerged from his coma that night and was reunited with his wife and daughter at Christmas Eve mass; Alistair had changed Ethan's test results to make his situation appear hopeless.

2006

Desperate to save his marriage and escape from Theresa, whom he found increasingly difficult to resist, Ethan requested a transfer at Crane Industries at Gwen's behest, and Julian arranged for Ethan, Gwen, and Jane to move to New Delhi, India. The three were ready to take off when Theresa revealed that Alistair had left her in charge of Crane Industries, and she terminated Ethan's transfer. The Winthrops, penniless after Theresa froze their bank accounts and rescinded their Crane-issued credit cards, moved to the Bed & Breakfast. Ethan began pursuing job opportunities elsewhere, but Theresa had him blackballed, and he was unable to find work.

Gwen, meanwhile, was thrilled when she received a request for an interview with the exclusive Collier & Company. She and Ethan talked things through, and eventually decided that Gwen would end her role as stay-at-home mother and return to the workforce while Ethan would wait out the remainder of his contract with Crane as a stay-at-home father. Gwen went to work for Collier, fascinated by the work there, unaware that Theresa had bribed Mr. Collier to hire her and keep her busy there so that Theresa could move in on Ethan.

Gwen was terrified when Theresa caught up with tabloid editor J.T. Cornell in Rome because she believed that the secret she had been keeping for so long, that it was her and Rebecca that had clued the tabloids off to Ethan's true paternity, would finally come out, but luckily Ethan refused to believe Theresa's claims. Arriving in Rome, Gwen even destroyed Theresa's cell phone to prevent the truth from coming out when Theresa took a photo of her and Cornell talking, and she eventually paid Cornell off to leave Rome.

Gwen's relief was short-lived; although Theresa officially gave up on prising her husband from her while they were in Rome, Ethan, upon returning, was increasingly unable to stay away from Theresa. Gwen attempted to convince herself that Theresa's burgeoning relationship with Harmony newcomer Jared Casey was good news for her marriage, but Ethan's preoccupation with proving Jared's unsuitability as a mate for Theresa undermined her efforts. Unbeknownst to Gwen (or Jared), Theresa and Ethan carried on a mini-affair in the fall of 2006, which began when Ethan--drunken and jealous of Jared--inadvertently stumbled into Theresa's hotel room rather than his own. Gwen, though, was well aware of her husband's emotional infidelity; in December 2006, upon realizing her husband was having a lascivious dream involving her rival, she woke him up and threw her wedding ring at him (although she later swallowed her pride to ask him for the ring back and a fresh start in their marriage).

2007

Gwen discovered Theresa and Ethan in bed together in late January 2007, and left him, telling him that it was clear he would always love Theresa, and that she, Gwen, deserved someone who loved only her. Ethan, in a last-ditch effort to prevent her from leaving, told her that it would violate their custody agreement if she took Jane; to prove she was serious about leaving, Gwen smashed her wedding ring with a hammer and bid her beloved stepdaughter a heartbreaking goodbye.

In mid-February, Theresa received a text message from Gwen's cell phone which was her first communication from Harmony's "Nightstalker." Theresa was warned to stay with Jared Casey and leave Ethan alone, or else her secret--Little Ethan's paternity--would be disclosed. With Pilar's help, Theresa quickly apprehended that Gwen and her mother were probably not responsible for the threats.

On February 23rd, 2007, Ethan received from Gwen a petition for divorce and reacted with little regret, declaring only that his divorce would improve his chances with Theresa.

In May 2007, Gwen was seen several times at an undisclosed location, on one occasion mysteriously tied to a bed. Over the phone, she told her mother and Ethan that she wasn't coming back to Harmony, that she had a "new man in [her] life now," and that she wasn't planning on fighting Ethan or Theresa ever again.

Long-time viewers anticipate the unravelling of the mystery of Gwen's situation eagerly, and also look forward to her all-but-inevitable breaking of her promise not to fight Ethan or Theresa when she returns to Harmony June 21st, 2007.

Family

Spouse(s)

• Ethan Winthrop (married December 19, 2002; currently divorcing)

Children

• Sarah Winthrop (daughter, October 8, 2003, with Ethan; stillborn)
• Nathan Winthrop (son, November 8, 2004, with Ethan; medical abortion)

Parents

• Jonathan Hotchkiss (father)
• Rebecca Hotchkiss (mother)

Other information

Rivals

• Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald Crane
• Beth Wallace

Relationships

• Ethan Winthrop (Lovers/Married/Divorcing)
• "Unknown man" (torturing her)

Occupation

• Business executive

Hidden Passions

In the book Hidden Passions, Gwen's grandmother was named Pamela Osburn. Information in the book has not been confirmed on-screen and is not considered to be official since the information seen on the show contradicts much of what was said in the book.

External links

• Passions on NBC
• Gwen at NBC
• soapcentral.com|PS Online
• Gwen at Soap Central