Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Days of Our Lives’ Legend Susan Seaforth Hayes to Pay On-Air Tribute to Late Husband and Co-Star: ‘He Deserved To Be Lifted Up’ [EXCLUSIVE]
Life imitated art in the most beautiful of ways when, in 1970, the characters of Julie Olson and Doug Williams met on “Days of Our Lives,” and their real-life counterparts, Susan Seaforth and Bill Hayes fell in love and lived happily ever after, in a marriage that last 50 years, until his death earlier this year. Now, “Days” and Seaforth Hayes will be paying tribute to the man who once sang to both Julie and Susan that they are “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.”
“Being without Bill is quite a change,” Seaforth Hayes tells Variety. “I really appreciate what the producers have done to honor him — to allow me to give pretty much the same eulogy [on the show for Doug] that I gave [Bill] at our church. I certainly didn’t expect that. He deserved to be lifted up, and I was so, so pleased that [his death] wasn’t just passed over as something that happened off stage. It happens very much on stage too. It was difficult to do, but not as difficult as living through it in life.”
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They 12-tissue storyline rolls out next week, as Julie tends to her ailing husband while, with the show keeps the date of Doug’s death and Julie’s heartbreaking eulogy close to the vest. Although the scenes have already been taped, Seaforth teases the touching send-off, saying, “They’re apparently putting together a lot of historical tapes around [Doug and Julie’s early days together].”
She adds, “The ‘Days’ cast was there for me and there for Billy too. Even Deidre [Hall] was there and visited the last few days of his life. She was in the room with us,” she says, pausing as emotions began to rise to the surface. “So, you know, that kind of support is wonderful. He deserved to be loved by a wide audience, and he was. And now I want to just be as good as he was, as good a person and as good a performer, and in return, do the best I can with the years that are coming in front of the show, for the future. I don’t want to be separated and go away and have a private life. I prefer to work and do one of the few things I can do. I don’t know how to make change, but I do know how to be Julie the character.”
Seaforth Hayes took over the role of Julie in 1968, three years into the show. Hayes joined the show a handful of years later, and it was instant romantic magic. They became one of Daytime TV’s first supercouples on- and off-screen, marrying in real life in 1974 and on “Days” in 1976, at which time they graced the cover of Time magazine.
“We fell in love with each other in front of our viewers, and they knew it before we knew it,” Seaforth Hayes smiles. “And our head writer Bill Bell, he knew it before we knew it. He scrapped all the story he had planned and wrote a story for us that was endless. So, I owe, I owe ‘Days of Our Lives’ my career, my happy marriage, my mother’s writing career. All of that is entangled. And then the fact that I got a Lifetime Achievement Emmy because we were survivors, and we were still crazy about each other. I don’t know. I do have an Emmy on the piano for Billy and for me, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
On Nov. 2, fans gathered with the “Days of Our Lives” cast at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles to celebrate the start of the show’s 60th season. You read that correctly. “Imagine having a show that lasts 60 years. This isn’t like show business… it’s like General Motors,” she jokes.
“In a world where so many things are falling apart, it’s nice to know that there’s some place where you can turn on the set and be in an imaginary town with people you love, and people that are interesting and people that are villains,” Seaforth Hayes says. “They’re threatening the people you love and reasons to watch and reasons to fall in love with the characters. It is an escape, but we are responsible for making it a happy escape.”
At the event, Seaforth Hayes led a moment of silence and a musical tribute to honor Bill Hayes and Drake Hogestyn [John], who we also sadly lost this year. “We had a lot of music on the show, and for Tom and Alice’s anniversary, Doug sang ‘I’ll Be Loving You Always’ to Tom and Alice, and all the family was seated at a long table, and we sang a few bars of it. And so that was kind of the core love song for everybody. … And then I was thinking how this audience that has loved Drake for so long deserves to thank him. So we sang it for them, and the fans were invited to join in.”
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