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Young At Heart

As feisty Edward Quartermaine on GENERAL HOSPITAL, John Ingle finds himself in one crazy scheme after another — and offscreen, the actor shows no signs of slowing down either. “My wife and I have been married 46 years and we think we’re younger than other people our age,” Ingle admits. “I try and project an image that isn’t the typical grandfather image.”He succeeds by having “an active lifestyle, whether it’s walking, swimming or golf or involvement with other people,” Ingle offers. “People my age who find it desirable to move to a retirement community, that’s their choice and I’m not knocking them, but there is a danger in sameness of people with attitudes and foods and lifestyles. We have five grown daughters and nine grandkids so we’re constantly involved with them. And I love these young actors on the show, I adore them. I’m kind of everyone’s surrogate father, and I cherish that role.”

However, Ingle wishes there were more roles open to older actors. “I remember an agent said to me, ‘Well, it’s a young market.’ I said, ‘I know it’s a young market, but these young people have fathers and grandfathers and teachers and judges and bosses. They have to have some older authority figure to either criticize them or yell at them or marry them,” he says with a laugh. “It is important because I get letters from young people who say, ‘When you get mad I hear my grandfather.'”

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