Birthdate: June 28, 1970

Birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana

Why He Went To Six High Schools: "My mother's work involved lots of transfers. Now she's remarried, living in Boston. I think she has settled down."

First Acting Teacher: Brooke Bundy (ex-Diana Taylor, GH). Does Burton know she used to star on his show? "She did? You're kidding."

Recent Photo Shoot: Playgirl magazine. "I wore a wet suit."

Advice He Got From Kin Shriner (Scotty): "He told me to develop something about Jason to make him more real; something unique about him. But he told me I can't make cracks about my hair--that trait is taken."

The laid-back 23-year-old actor has acquired almost as many dings in his body as in his board the past few yearsincluding a "dimple" on his right cheek. "I took off on a wave, ate it and got sucked under while the board stayed on top, attached to me an on leash. When it came up, white water caused the board to snap back at me, sending the point of the surfboard through my mouth."

Shortly after practicing plastic surgery on his own face, Burton was tossed in the slammer in Rosarita Beach Mexico, while on a surfing safari. "We were trying to beat the daylight," he recalls ruefully, "but we slowed down as soon as we hit Mexico. There are stop signs all over the place once you hit Rosarita, and we observed them all. All of a sudden, there was a cop behind us. I didn't know why he stopped us, but I asked if I could pay the fine on the spot. They put us in jail instead! When it was all over [about two hours later], they let us goafter paying a $40 fine for running a stop sign. It was scary because once you cross the border, you don't know what's going to happen. You can get stuck there."

A steady paycheck from GH now enables Burton to take his surfing excursions to safer locales, and he takes full advantage of the situation. He recently returned from a sojourn to Hawaii ("where the most dangerous thing is a gawking tourist with a rental car") with a girlfriend. Recharged, Burton is attacking the role of nice guy Jason Quartermaine with a vengeance. "I really think if people like the relationships between the characters, they'll watch the show," he theorizes. "I look at the Quartermaines, and I think, `What is wrong with this family? They are living the American dream. They have tons of money and their health. And they're miserable.' I guess that's what makes it interesting."

Burton' s childhood was a far cry from wealthy Jason's. The only child of divorced parents, Burton lived with his optician mother and attended five high schools (three in Chicago and two in Cleveland) before going to live with his fathera disc jockey and real estate managerin Beverly Hills at age 16. He spent his junior and senior years at Beverly Hills High School, which bore more than a little resemblance to life at the fictional institution popularized by BEVERLY HILLS, 90210

"Not growing up with money, I was a bit surprised to see 16-year-olds driving Mercedeses, Porsches and BMWs," recalls Burton. "There were car trends on that campus. One year, everybody would be driving Jeeps; the next, they were all getting around in BMW convertibles. I drove a '73 MG. The funniest thing is that I worked my butt off the summer before my junior year to buy new, fashionable clothes so I could fit in. Then I got there, and they all wore jeans and T-shirts. I never even wore the stuff that I bought."

Feeling out of place, Burton took up acting as a hobby, at his father's urging. He worked with an acting teacher and soon became a regular on the syndicated sitcom OUT OF THIS WORLD (1987-1990) as Chris Fuller, the dorky All American surfer boy next door. (Typecasting?) He followed that up with a short stint as Harris Michaels on DAYS OF OUR LIVES before clicking as daytime's favorite bastard high school student.

"I actually auditioned for A.J. first," Burton explains. "I was fairly close to getting that, and then they decided to bring back Jason. There were about 35 other people, and [then Executive Producer] Gloria [Monty] picked me. [GH] had decided to speed up the aging process, because I was born in 1981 and A.J. was born in 1979, I think. So they just brought us back from boarding school older." What kind of character is Jason? "Originally, I was this clean-cut perfect son. I could do no wrong," Burton theorizes. "But last summer, we had this storyline where Jagger [Antonio Sabato, Jr.], Karen [Cari Shayne] and I were stuck on an island and we thought we had killed a guy. We needed ransom money, so I stole my grandfather's coins, I stole a check from my mom and I stole a van. And that was great because it was a different side to Jason, not just the goody-goody son.

"Jason is getting some edges," Burton concludes. "All the stuff with A.J. [being an alcoholic], getting dumped by Karen and now hanging-out with Brenda has made him a little darker. I'm glad I'm a Quartermaine. It's an honor."

One of the most frequently asked questions from readers of Soap Opera Digest is, "Does Jason know Monica is not his real mother?" The answer is yes. Jason knows he is the product of an affair that Alan Quartermaine had with Susan Moore back in the early '80s.

Longtime GH fans know that Susan was murdered and that suspects included Susan's then-husband, Scotty Baldwin; Susan's ex-lover Alan Quartermaine; Alan's angry wife, Monica; Alan's distressed mother, Lila; and Susan's cousin, Heather Webber. But Crane Tolliver really did it. Monica decided to raise Jason as her own after Susan's death in 1983. Jason was very close in age to Monica's own son, Alan Jr., who was himself the subject of a fierce paternity battle around the same time. (But that's another sidebar....)

So what was it like when Jason's portrayer, Steve Burton, met his "dead" mother, actress Gail Ramsey (she was Gail Rae Carlson back then), at the GH 30th anniversary party? "I actually met her first on THE HOME SHOW," Burton reports. "It was so weird. I had heard so much about her: how Alan had an affair with her, how I came about, how she got shot in the head. It was like a linkI got chills. We had a nice talk and she told me that when she decided to leave, [GH] she told them, 'Kill me. Don't bring me back. Make it a good one.' And they did!" What does Burton think Jason would say to the dear, departed Susan if he could meet her? "I think Jason would thank her and Alan for not using birth control," he chuckles.

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In The Making...

Early photos of super blond - Steve Burton