Gina Kincaid

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Gina Kincaid was a character on FOX's popular TV series Beverly Hills 90210. She was portrayed by actress Vanessa Marcil. Gina was the cousin of Donna Martin. Her character was created to replace the departing Valerie Malone.

Gina was not mentioned on the show prior to her first on-screen appearance. She entered the series as a visiting cousin of Donna's, but eventually decided to stay in Beverly Hills for some time.

She is a figure skater of some achievement when she first appeared but is quickly fired and dumped by her agent for her lousy attitude. It is later revealed that an injury cost her a shot at the Olympics and she was pushed, some might say abused, by her poor mother to make a lot of money as a skater (a possible parallel to the sad real-life story of Tonya Harding). She conceals her failure from the rest of the gang, most especially Donna. Gina is bitter about her childhood as poor trailer trash, having always felt inferior to her rich and perfect cousin. It is stated that Gina would receive Donna's hand-me-down's, and she and her family never saw the money Donna's family made. Gina's mother Bobbi and Donna's mother Felice are sisters who don't get along-Felice sees Bobbi as a loser with no discipline, and Bobbi sees Felice as a stuffy snob. Most of the show's stories about Bobbi are very negative, from her cruelty towards her daughter to mentions of how she would leave her alone on Thanksgiving and attend to her own social life.

She would date David Silver and Dylan McKay during the series and the controversial nature of a set of pictures of she and Noah would be at the heart of several contentious moments between Noah, Donna and herself. Around the time of her arrival, Gina acted as Noah's designated driver during a drunken episode when Donna sends him away. On the way home, the two stop at an arcade and enter a photo booth to take a few pictures, the last of which depicting her placing a kiss on Noah's cheek. Because he was drunk he is not able to recall whether she and he had sex, leaving her the only one to know the answer. Sex did not take place, however, on one occasion, Gina convinced Noah they did, driving him to confess to Donna and ruin their relationship. Right after, Gina reveals that they did not have sex. Donna hates Gina for this for a while, but they later make some amends when Donna helps Gina recover money from a trust fund that was mismanaged by Felice--not knowing that the whole thing was actually a scam organized by Gina and Bobbi. Kelly Taylor blamed Gina for Dylan's backsliding into drug addiction and Gina was angered by Dylan's continuing quasi-romantic attention to Kelly, so their relationship was never good. Kelly did offer help to Gina when she learned of her enemy's struggle with bulimia. However, Gina "repaid" Kelly by first making insulting comments on TV after Kelly shot and killed the man who had raped her (Donna responded by tossing Gina out of the beach apartment). Gina later sealed her fate in Kelly's bad books when she and Noah ran an after-hours strip club at the PPAD that David Silver's father Mel patronized, leading to his divorce from Kelly's mom.

Donna discovered through genealogy software that her own father, John Martin, was also Gina's father--Dr. Martin had a one-night stand with his wife's sister. This made Donna and Gina have the unusual distinction of being both cousins and half-sisters. Gina struggled with the truth about her paternity but she and Dr. Martin reached an understanding. Shortly after, however, Dr. Martin collapsed and died of a stroke, which the group in general and Felice and Donna specifically blamed on Gina; Felice even specifically told a newspaper Dr. Martin only had one daughter (Donna). After the funeral where she stands up and gives a heartfelt eulogy when a sobbing Donna is unable to speak, Gina was accepted by Felice and Donna and then decided to leave Beverly Hills. She and Dylan had planned to leave town together but Dylan's heart wasn't in it and Gina was not very disappointed when he broke the plans and stayed there. Gina didn't appear after this episode, but it's mentioned that she has gotten a job with a cable sports network.

Vanessa Marcil wanted to leave the series before the final episode, allegedly after growing tired of the cantankerous behavior toward her on the parts of costars Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling. Brian Austin Green--whom Marcil later became engaged to and with whom she has a son--was the only member of the cast she became close with, leading to a time when Green would not speak with Garth or Spelling.