Childhood

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.

First relationship with Ethan, 1999 — 2000

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.

Break-up with Ethan, 2000 — 2002

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 Ethan from marrying Theresa. Gwen agreed to go along with Rebecca’s plans.

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. Disguising her voice, Gwen made a phone call and completed her mission by revealing the information to the tabloid and framing Theresa in the process

Revival of her relationship with Ethan, 2002 — 2007

Marriage and Sarah’s stillbirth, 2002 — 2003

The perfect execution of the plan allowed Gwen to revive her relationship with Ethan. Yet, Ethan has always had feelings for Theresa and was about to end his relationship with Gwen soon afterwards. 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.

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 left the hospital looking to confront Theresa, but by the time she reached the apartment complex she decided that she was blowing things out of proportion, and decided to spend the night with Ethan before returning to the hospital. She encountered Theresa down at the pool, and the two women got into a confrontation that ultimately resulted in Gwen being rushed to the hospital in full labor. [3] Gwen and the baby were both in distress, and Ethan was told he had to choose between his wife and child. Ethan chose to save Gwen, but before he could tell the doctors his decision, Dr. Abel advised him that they had lost the baby, a little girl (born October 7, 2003). Gwen was devastated when she woke up and learned her daughter had died. [4]

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.

Jane’s birth and custody battles, 2004 — 2007

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. Once home, Theresa renamed the little girl Jane (after Jane Eyre). [7]

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. 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 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, because if Alistair’s constant rape and physical beating (enabled by a knowledgeable Gwen, who decided to allow it to continue happening and scheme to ensure nobody could help Theresa), 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. However, Ethan woke up and walked into Mass (liturgy) surprising everyone.

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 blacklisted their names from employers, moved to the Bed & Breakfast.

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).

Separation and divorce from Ethan, 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 moral effort to preserve his marriage, 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. On February 23, 2007, Gwen sent Ethan a petition for divorce.

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”; she said she never planned on fighting Ethan or Theresa again.

Gwen returned to Harmony on June 21, 2007. She followed Ethan to the Russell’s home, where she interrupted Ethan with Theresa, called Theresa a fool for not seizing the opportunity to be with Ethan once she, Gwen, walked away, and calling Ethan a “loser” for holding onto Theresa. Walking away, Gwen admitted that, while she hates Ethan, she also still loves him.

When Gwen and Rebecca found out that Little Ethan was biological son, and that Theresa knew, she decided to reveal Theresa’s deception at Ethan and Theresa’s wedding (Gwen and Ethan were officially divorced on July 20). However, Chad Harris-Crane locked Gwen and Rebecca in a bathroom, and Ethan and Theresa left for their honeymoon before Gwen could expose Theresa. Gwen and Rebecca followed the newlyweds to their hotel, where they ran into a very-much-alive Alistair Crane, who was furious at Theresa (to whom he was still married, as he was not dead as previously believed) for tricking him into making Little Ethan his heir despite possessing no Crane blood. Alistair sent poisoned strawberries into Ethan and Theresa’s suite; however, Ethan ate them instead, and fell into a coma.

Though Gwen wanted to stay by Ethan, finally admitting to her mother that she still loved Ethan, she left when she received word that her “new man” was ill. She rushed away to be with him, despite Rebecca’s protests. She returned on September 7, as Ethan and Theresa were waiting to meet his son (Pilar was to bring Little Ethan), and introduced them to her “new man”: a baby boy, her son with Ethan, later named Jonathan.

Jonathan and Juanita Vasquez plot, 2007—2008

Upon to returning to Harmony with Jonathan, Gwen decides to fight for Ethan and begins using her baby to bond herself to him. In order to keep Ethan away from Theresa, Gwen and Rebecca threaten to reveal Theresa’s mother Pilar’s location to her mortal enemy, Juanita Vasquez, who seeks to murder the Lopez-Fitzgerald family, if Theresa tells Ethan about Little Ethan’s paternity. The situation becomes dire, however, when baby Jonathan needs a partial liver transplant. When his half-sister, Jane, is unable to be a donor, Jonathan’s only hope is Little Ethan. Gwen is unable to deal with the possibility that she might lose a third child and convinces herself that holistic treatments will save her son’s life; when she finally grasps the seriousness of the situation and decides to tell Ethan about Little Ethan, Rebecca drugs her to prevent her from telling Ethan. Luckily, Theresa anonymously donates part of Little Ethan’s liver, and Jonathan is saved.

To prevent Ethan from finding out that Little Ethan was Jonathan’s donor, Theresa takes her son to one of the Crane cabins to recuperate; Ethan and Gwen follow her, and Gwen convinces Ethan that Theresa has another man in the other room. Ethan and Theresa split up, and Gwen begins to work to win Ethan back. She reveals that, because she never informed Ethan of her pregnancy, she and Ethan are still legally married, and they agree to stay married for Jonathan’s sake. Ethan is devastated when Theresa is presumed deceased in Mexico, but Gwen convinces him to try to move on and form a family with her, Jane, and Jonathan.

Gwen, Rebecca, and Ivy hire a new nanny for the kids, Gertrude (actually a very much live Theresa in disguise). While Gwen and Ethan prepare to renew their vows, Theresa (as Getrude) schemes to tear them apart. Gwen also begins a rivalry with Little Ethan, who knows that his mother is Gertrude, and causes mischief for Gwen in order to make her mad and sour her in front of Ethan. Gwen and Rebecca eventually do discover that Theresa is alive; Gwen also realizes that Theresa is Gertrude, but does not expose her for fear that Ethan will leave her.

Despite several setbacks, Gwen and Ethan have their vow renewal ceremony. At the last minute, Theresa is revealed alive and informs Ethan and the wedding guests about Juanita Vasquez and her secret plan to cause the church to explode with everyone in it. Juanita is finally captured by Sam, Luis, and Miguel, and Ethan defuses her bomb. Theresa confronts her rival with the information that she used to blackmail her and her mother and brings up the infamous tabloid scandal again to everyone. Gwen denies her involvement and insists that there is no proof of her misdeeds. However, with the revelation of Little Ethan’s paternity and a complete confession on videotape, Gwen and her mother are arrested. During their arrest, Rebecca accidentally reveals to everyone that Gwen and Ethan’s marriage of six years is in fact invalid; following Ethan and Gwen’s terminated engagement in 2000, Gwen and Rebecca went to Las Vegas, where Gwen became intoxicated and was married to an unknown man by an Asian Elvis impersonator. After being teleported to jail by Kay’s magic, Gwen and her mother try to stop Ethan and Theresa’s wedding in a final attempt to have a happy ending. Though Ethan and Theresa are married, a handsome police officer shows up and declares he will be waiting for Gwen should she ever get out of prison on bail.

References

^ Ethan and Gwen had planned to name their unborn son Nathan, but never did so legally.
^ Referred to by Rebecca on-air on December 27, 2007; because no transcript of the episode exists, the correct spelling of the name is unknown.
^ Seen on-air from September 25, 2003, through September 29, 2003.
^ Seen on-air on October 7, 2003, and October 8, 2003.

^ Seen on-air on March 17, 2004, revealed in a
conversation between Gwen and Rebecca.
^ Seen on-air on March 22, 2004, and March 23, 2004.

^ Seen on-air on January 26, 2005.