The character was killed off in a plane crash, but Lewis' voice was still heard whenever Lila spoke to her late husband's ghost.

[1] However, Ingle opted for a contract role of Mickey Horton on Days of Our Lives, and Jed Allan was brought on to play Edward[1] starting on March 1, 2004.

In September 2012, soap opera gossip site, Daytime Confidential reported that Ingle could possibly be making his last appearance.

[6][7] Uncredited actors portrayed the role briefly in 2014 and 2019, when the character appeared as a ghost to help escort A. J. Quartermaine and Oscar Nero to heaven.

Many of his storylines involve health concerns, such as multiple heart attacks, a bout of amnesia in 1989, a stroke and faked coma, and a time in 2004 when his daughter Tracy had him committed to the Shadybrook Sanitarium, though he later escaped with the assistance of Luke Spencer.

Edward quickly established himself as one of the most influential residents of Port Charles, becoming a member of the hospital board and a good friend to Steve Hardy and Lee Baldwin.

Edward decided to test daughter Tracy's loyalty after she tried to prove that Alan Jr. was fathered by another man, by pretending to have a heart attack.

Edward teamed up with his niece Alexandria Quartermaine to make money with her friends, Victor and Tony Cassadine, by finding the Ice Princess.

When Holly Sutton arrived in town, Edward immediately schemed to become financially involved in her alleged oil discovery, and charmed her in order to try to get in.

The Quartermaine's biggest problem arrived in the form of Susan Moore, Alan's ex-mistress and mother of his son, Jason.

Edward discovered what it was like to be broke when Monica and her new flame Sean Donely, found their way into ELQ's boardroom and took the company away from the Quartermaines.

Lila rescued their family by starting a new business she called "Pickle-Lila," which was a success and restored the Quartermaines' fortune and lifestyle.

News of Tracy's return after a decade of banishment threatened Edward's health; he was in bed, allegedly sick with a cold.

Their reunion had Edward grabbing his heart medication from his dresser, leaving Tracy to remember her actions as a greedy young woman.

Two years later, Anna Devane found Edward playing beach bum in the Bahamas and dragged him back to civilization.

When Chloe was the victim of a hit and run, Edward dropped his vendetta against the marriage, but not his plans to get Ned back at ELQ.

Jax and Ned staged an argument in Edward's hospital room and tricked him into coming out of his "coma," which they knew was a fake.

When Alexis was put on trial for Luis Alcazar's murder, Edward conspired to get custody of her daughter, Kristina.

Tracy blew back into town just long enough to reveal that Skye was not a Quartermaine and to leave her son Dillon to live with his grandparents.

Edward was thrilled when Emily and Nikolas found a treasure on a sunken ship owned by a Quartermaine ancestor that could restore the family fortune.

Edward was crushed to hear about Michael's shooting, and Tracy decided to invent some problems at ELQ to take his mind off his grief.

In September 2009, Edward and his girlfriend Deidre Evans were on a date when he socialized with the mayor's wife, Andrea Floyd.

In January 2010, Edward invites his great granddaughter Maya Ward to Port Charles to live at the mansion.

While Edward seemed quite content over Brook Lynn's relationship with Nikolas Cassadine, he despised Brenda's engagement to Sonny.

Edward attends a charity event hosted by Carly at the Metro Court, but has chest pains and nearly collapses in the lobby, Skye brings him up to her room.

On Christmas Eve, Edward tells Monica and Tracy that the year Lila died, she was planning on getting him monogrammed cuff links.

When the town's water supply is contaminated, Tracy is seemingly immune to the effects of the pathogen, and decides to undergo tests in order to see if her blood could be used to create an antiserum.

A frail Edward, wise to Tracy's plans, refuses to take the antiserum, and instead requests that she give it to Patrick's daughter Emma Drake.

[9] In 2023, Charlie Mason from Soaps She Knows placed Edward at #26 on his ranked list of General Hospital’s 40+ Greatest Characters of All Time, commenting that "They don’t make ’em like this anymore!

The patriarch of the Quartermaine family was a blustering tyrant whose huffing and puffing did a fine job of hiding the fact that, underneath, he was really a big softy.