Gail Altman

Gail Altman was a college sorority sister of Penny Halliwell when the two were in college during the 1950s. About 20 years later, Grams started a "bridge club" that met in the manor with several of her closest friends who were magical witches and practitioners, including Gail. However, it was really a coven.



Gail was very close to Prue, Piper and Phoebe; the three girls looked on her as an aunt. Sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, Grams told Gail that she believed her three granddaughters were the Charmed Ones.

In 2001, Gail was dying of inoperable cancer. In hopes of saving her life, she and two surviving members of her coven, Helen and Amanda, summoned Cryto, the demon of vanity. Gail promised to get him the powers of telekinesis, molecular immobilization and premonition in return for youth and beauty.

Gail talked the sisters into coming to her home in Santa Costa, a suburb of San Francisco, to hunt down a demon who is digging up graves and skinning corpses. After the four witches found Cryto in the Book of Shadows, Gail secretly ripped out the "To Separate a Witch From Her Powers" potion and spell from the Book and slipped it into her pocket. It turned out that Gail and her friends are the ones digging up graves.

When the sisters arrived at Gail's house, Gail, Helen and Amanda gave them some tea spiked with the potion, then used the spell to call their powers to Cryto. While Cryto made Gail young, he turned Helen and Amanda into dust to keep them from turning on him; it takes three witches to banish him. He then forced her to persuade several of her friends in town to trade their souls for youth. Gail soon regretted what she'd done, and slipped the "To Separate a Witch Form Her Power" page back to the Charmed Ones so they could banish him. However, when she tried to escape, Cryto caught her at it and turned her to dust.

Despite being Grams' close friend as a young witch, Gail isn't seen or mentioned in the episode Witchstock where Grams is shown in the '60s holding a wiccan be-in at the manor with her magical friends. Instead, it's established that she had another best friend named Robin who was really an evil witch and killed her husband, Allen Halliwell.

Powers and Abilities
Gail Altman possessed only basic witch powers such as: Although it's possible she had some type of passive power.
 * Potion Making
 * Spell Casting
 * Scrying

Appearences
Gail appeared in a total of 1 episode throughout the course of the series.


 * Season 2
 * How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans