Family.
If there’s one word to sum up the near-half-century run of daytime drama The Days of Our Lives, both onscreen and behind the scenes, it’s unquestionably, family.
The word was invoked many times during the Television Academy’s tribute, “Celebrating 45 Years of the The Days of Our Lives,” honoring what is now NBC’s longest-running scripted show. Held September 28 at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, the event drew more than two dozen current and former cast members onstage and in the audience, plus creative team members and, of course, an audience of enthusiastic fans.
Hosted by Jon Jordan, style editor at NBC Local 4 Detroit affiliate WDIV, the evening was divided into themed segments, each prefaced by a clips package, and simulcast at the Academy’s websites with color commentary by recent Days cast addition Ty Treadway. The show premiered November 8, 1965; it recorded episode number 11,473 the day of the Academy festivities.
Before the other panelists took the Goldenson stage, executive producer Ken Corday, whose parents Ted and Betty created the soap, reflected on the show’s origins. “The concept of family is perennial,” he noted. “We get it every day on the stage, with the cast and crew giving to each other. My mother and father were very much in love with each other, and with the idea of family. [They thought,] ‘Why not do something like that, in the Midwest?’ (The show is set in the fictional town of Salem.)
“After 45 years, Days is still the same show,” Corday added. “It’s about the DiMera and Horton/Brady families, and the redemptive power of love.”
Sadly, Ted Corday didn’t live to see the show’s first anniversary. At his behest, Betty took over running the show, and twenty years later passed those duties to son Ken.
Appropriately, the first segment and clips featured the concept of family, with Corday joined by actresses Maree Cheatham (Marie), Mary Beth Evans (Kayla), Melissa Reeves (Jennifer) and Suzanne Rogers (Maggie). Asked her favorite memory of the late Frances Reid, who played matriarch Alice Horton, Rogers replied, “It was always at Christmas. We would be putting the ornaments on the tree. She was like a grandmother, a mother to me. She was always there, the rock that held us all together, especially after Mac [patriarchal figure Macdonald Carey] passed away.”
Agreed Reeves, who started as a teen on the show, “Frances was like a real grandmother to me. She mentored me. The Hortons taught me to raise my own family.”
Next up: Romance, with fictional couple Kristian Alfonso (Hope) and Peter Reckell (Bo) and real-life married duo Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes (Doug and Julie). Seaforth Hayes noted that in the years when the shooting schedule was not so fast-paced, she and Hayes had time for some dressing room lovemaking before shooting their scenes. Then on camera, “The audience sensed there was an undercurrent of joyous romance.” The twosome even appeared on the cover of Time magazine, in 1976.
Of Bo and Hope’s 1985 marriage in London — the wedding ceremony was taped in-studio and the exteriors, on location — Alfonso recalled the show’s costume designer flying to Paris to pick up the tulle for her wedding dress; the dress cost $30,000. “The storyline was every woman’s dream — the love they had for each other,” she said. “I have so many fond memories.”
The third segment, dubbed, Action, Adventure and Heroes, welcomed Galen Gering (Rafe), Drake Hogestyn (John), James Reynolds (Abe), Charles Shaughnessy (Shane) and Josh Taylor (Roman) to the stage. As it turns out, the adventure may be fictional, but the action is real: Hogestyn, who played a swashbuckling Bourne Identity type, has had several surgeries for injuries sustained. “We gave our bodies for the show,” he quipped.
A hero’s best gig, according to Shaughnessy, is the coma. “You show up, and you get the same paycheck!” he said. “You don’t have to get there early for dry blocking — you get in bed, lie there and everyone says lovely things about you.” Both Gering and Reynolds said they enjoy playing good guys rather than bad, but, said Shaughnessy, “What this show does so well is that the good guy is flawed. Good through-and-through is boring. The hero has to be redeemed regularly.”
The good guys were replaced by villains for the next panel, as portrayed by Lauren Koslow (Kate), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano), James Scott (E.J.), Louise Sorel (Vivian) and Arianne Zucker (Nicole). “Where do you find these people?” Jordan wanted to know. Responded Corday, “When Joe auditioned, [he was] amazing. The producers had no choice but to cast him as Stefano. [He] owned that role. All five of these actors own their villainy, but they all have a little spark of something good.”
For her part, Sorel said, “I just do what they write, and embrace it.” When Jordan suggested that her character might be psychotic, Sorel said, “Is she? It never occurred to me she was demented. You can’t play villainy as psychotic, because then it doesn’t work.”
Koslow expressed amazement that her character can justify anything. “It’s pretty much about power. She sees things as okay, because she wants to accumulate power for her family. Agreed Mascolo, “I don’t think any villain gets up every day and says, ‘Oh, boy, I’m a villain.’ They have power. … The thing that makes them interesting is that they have vulnerable moments. Otherwise, it would be very boring.”
The evening’s penultimate segment, Growing Up in Salem, brought Nadia Bjorlin (Chloe), Bryan Dattilo (Lucas), Jay Kenneth Johnson (Philip) and Alison Sweeney (Sami) to the stage. “I just realized how exciting it is to have your awkward teenage years documented on film,” Bjorlin observed, after viewing the clips. Paired with Johnson, “Jay and I grew up together, on- and off-camera,” she said. “We were each other’s first screen kiss.”
Agreed Johnson, “Just watching the clips, my voice has changed a little. My acting has progressed.” Teamed with the fun-loving Dattilo, Sweeney noted, “I’m hoping I can someday say, ‘We grew up together,’ but we haven’t done that yet. It’s always a challenge to play opposite him, but he makes it fun.”
The last segment, the business side of Days, discussed the daytime drama’s new realities, such as product placement via actual items and integrated dialogue mentions, a new series of Days novels and a photographic history of the show, scheduled for November publication. Panelists included Days co-executive producer Gary Tomlin; head writer Dena Higley; Bruce Evans, senior vice president, drama programming, NBC Entertainment and Peter Lynch, editorial manager of Sourcebooks. Inc.
The show’s ratings had declined, making its future as suspenseful as one of the fictional storylines, but in March, it was renewed through the 2010-11 season; the ratings have risen ten percent. Taking such measures as product integration is, as Evans said, “a fact of life. We are a business. We have to make it profitable.” The show now shoots seven-and-one-half episodes a week, Tomlin said, up from five, but, Higley said, despite budget cuts and other changes, the story is still key. “We’re not compromising that.”
After hearing congratulatory letters from industry colleagues and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and receiving a commemorative sculpture from Academy chairman John Shaffner, Corday ended the evening as he had begun it, invoking family.
“The lessons my mother and father taught me are ingrained,” he said. “You’re only as good as your last show; you’ve got to love this medium and you’ve got to love the people you’re working with. We’re all so blessed.”
The evening was produced by Nancy Bradley Wiard. Rocci Chatfield is executive producer, entertainment of the Academy’s Activities Committee. Ray Proscia is co-chair of the committee’s entertainment division. Robert O’Donnell is director of activities for the Academy; Melissa Brown is activities manager.
All Photos: Mathew Imaging