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Guest Character Profiles > Ethan Smith Matthew Little

Ethan Smith 2014
Parents: John and Mary Smith
Siblings: Paige (Adoptive)

When Lauren Turner found out that the baby she thought had died at birth had actually been illegally adopted out, she was forced to tell Brad Willis, the father of the child, who had never even been aware of the pregnancy in the first place. After a couple of false starts, Lauren decided that she could no longer cope with the pain of trying to find her daughter, but Brad needed to find his child, so secretly started paying private detective Tracey Wong to conduct a search. Tracey's investigation led to John and Mary Smith, a couple from Adelaide who'd been in the area when the adoption had taken place. Unable to afford her services any more, Brad arranged to go to Adelaide and continue the search himself, but when his wife Terese found out, she made him tell Lauren, who decided that she would accompany Brad to South Australia. There, they found that the address for the Smiths no longer existed, and that the land had now been subdivided with a housing estate built on it. Following a difficult night in a motel, during which she and Brad had shared a kiss in the heat of the moment, Lauren returned home to Erinsborough alone. But, with some help from Tracey, Brad found out that the Smiths still owned one of the houses and went to see if he could find them. There, he met Ethan, who listened to Brad's story and explained that he must have got the wrong Smiths, as he was an only child. However, Brad left his business card along with Lauren's number, and once inside the house, Ethan made a mysterious call, telling someone that her biological parents had tracked her down.

That someone turned out to be Paige, Ethan's adoptive sister and Brad and Lauren's biological daughter. She immediately went to Erinsborough and started getting to know Brad and Lauren, as well as their families, without revealing her true identity. Keeping in touch with Ethan by phone, Paige managed to get a job in Lauren's coffee shop, and moved into a house on the same street as the Turners and Willises. As she was starting to piece together the truth about her adoption, and the reasons why Brad and Lauren were now married to other people, she was surprised when Ethan turned up in Erinsborough. With Brad only next-door, Paige knew that Ethan's presence was a huge threat to her secret and tried to get him to leave, but he promised that he'd be discreet, and admitted that he was worried that Paige was about to do something stupid. He then managed to make things even more complicated when he became involved with Imogen, Brad's daughter and Paige's half-sister. Ethan quickly turned out to be a bad influence on Imogen, who skipped school to spend time with him, and ended up being stripped of her school captaincy. Furious to hear about this, Brad went to 24 Ramsay Street to confront Ethan, only for Paige to tell him that her 'friend' had already left town, before telling Ethan to leave Erinsborough before he did any more damage.

A couple of weeks later, Paige had finally found out that circumstances behind her adoption - that Lauren's mother Kathy had been the one who'd arranged for the baby to be given away. As Paige started asking more and more questions, Lauren decided that she should try to heal the rift with her mum, and invited her to Erinsborough. As Paige learnt that Kathy was on her way, she phoned Ethan and gave him the name 'Kathy Carpenter', asking if he could run it past their parents and see if they knew anything about her. Ethan then turned up, worried about what Paige was planning to do, and she gave him the full story and said that she needed to meet Kathy and try to find out as much as she could before revealing her true identity - but she wouldn't be allowing Kathy to get away with what she'd done. Ethan then explained that he was about to leave to spend a year in Ibiza, and he suggested that Paige should join him, and if, in a year's time, she was still determined to get to know Lauren and Brad, then she could come back. Paige considered this, but then managed to find a way to get closer to Kathy, offering to help her to set up a new branch of her homewares chain in Erinsborough, and she told Ethan that although she hadn't ruled out joining him in Ibiza later on, for now she needed to deal with Kathy.

Tenure
6892, 6916, 6917, 6918, 6919, 6930

Biography by Steve

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