General Hospital Character Recap: Curtis Ashford

Curtis Ashford—a relatively new General Hospital mainstay—stands as a testament that one can indeed recover from one’s darkest hours and emerge triumphantly.

Who Is Curtis Ashford?

Curtis Byron is the youngest child of Thomas Ashford and the brother of another Thomas Ashford. While working as a police officer with the Baltimore Police Department—and eyeing a career with the Drug Enforcement Administration—Curtis became privy to his sister-in-law’s affair with his brother Thomas’s fellow Marine Shawn Butler.

When Curtis revealed the assignation to his brother, he did some digging of his own and discovered that his son, TJ, had actually been fathered by Shawn! Once all the secrets were outed, a confrontation erupted between the wronged husband and his wife’s lover. In its aftermath, Curtis’s brother Thomas was dead.

Curtis blamed himself for his brother’s untimely passing, and in his grief, he turned to the same drugs he had sworn to remove from the streets. When his addiction overtook him, Curtis’s career suffered, and he was subsequently fired from both the DEA and the BPD.

In time, Curtis completed a detox program and gained his Private Investigator’s license. His skills brought him to the attention of shooting victim Hayden Barnes, who hired him to prove that Shawn Butler had been framed for attempting to murder her.

Though he initially bristled at the idea of helping to clear his brother’s killer, Curtis eventually agreed—feeling that his actions might bring about a small measure of closure.

While conducting his investigation, Curtis ran into recent Port Charles transplants Jordan and TJ! Though Thomas’s widow was less than pleased to see him, Curtis refused her demands for his exit.

Instead, he continued his work and eventually uncovered that Nikolas Cassadine had ordered the hit on Hayden. Afterward, Curtis applied for an open position at the PCPD, but Jordan worked to block his hiring.

In the meantime, Curtis continued to ply his trade as a PI and also turned his attention toward rookie officer Valerie Spencer. The young woman had impressed him with her skills at the pool table, and for a time, they were a steady item. However, the romantic bubble burst when Valerie discovered that he used her to acquire evidence for one of his cases.

Meanwhile, Curtis and Jordan grew closer, and he even played referee between her and TJ when the young man learned the truth about his parentage. But just when it seemed like the two might make a real commitment to one another, they were stymied by the arrival of Curtis’s aunt Stella.

Stella did her utmost to prevent a relationship from developing, and the stress of her efforts even resulted in a stroke! And yet, Curtis and Jordan persevered. They married in grand style—and even obtained Stella’s belated blessing—but their honeymoon was marred by the discovery of a slain Kiki Jerome in their honeymoon suite.

Girlfriends 
Though Curtis’s best friend was probably the (presumably) late Drew Cain, that didn’t stop him from cultivating other friendships—and all with members of the female persuasion.

In Nina Reeves, Curtis found a true confident whom he would later ask to stand as his “best person” during his and Jordan’s wedding. And in Sam and Laura, he found partners-in-crime (solving). With the former, he founded Ashford and McCall—a PI firm—and with the latter, he found an ally in the hunt for serial killer Ryan Chamberlin—as well as a fellow Trivial Pursuit enthusiast.

The Things We Do For Love

Since recovering from his brief descent into lawlessness, Curtis has consistently fought on the side of good—even when he had to bend the rules ever so slightly. But perhaps no greater slide into criminality occurred than the time he conspired with several other Port Charlesians to rob Ryan Chamberlin of a donatable kidney that an ailing Jordan desperately needed.

Curtis Ashford – Moving Forward

For him, life is never simple. Not only does he now have the death of Marcus Taggert on his conscience, but Curtis feels the added responsibility of looking after the man’s daughter, who blames him entirely for her father’s passing.

Add to that his heretofore unknown past with the girl’s mother and his wife’s decision to hide the fact that TJ is now a hostage of crime lord Cyrus Renault, and you have a whole lot of problems that just might tip Curtis to his breaking point.