Days of Our Lives’ Susan Seaforth Hayes Relives the Terrifying Scene That Left Suzanne Rogers All ‘Fired Up’: ‘Everybody Was Screaming Their Head Off’
Monday, April 11th, 2022
The soap opera legends take a harrowing trip down memory lane.
As promised in their first video, Suzanne Rogers (Maggie) and Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie) returned for part two of their nostalgia-fueled chat focusing on the latter’s time on Days of Our Lives.
Rogers kicked off their trip down memory lane by pointing out Seaforth Hayes is the NBC soap opera’s longest-running cast member. Though she originally auditioned for the role of Julie Olson in 1965, it took recasting the part three times, over the following three years, for Seaforth Hayes to finally land the part in 1968.
And that time, the casting stuck.
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As she recounts in the video above, Seaforth Hayes’ first scene as Julie was with Frances Reid’s Alice Horton in a two-way phone conversation. In addition to that flashback, wonderful clips can be seen of Seaforth Hayes with her on and off-screen love, Bill Hayes, who, of course, plays Doug Williams.
When asked by Rogers to recall some of her most challenging scenes, Seaforth Hayes points to moments that hit close to home.
“The difficult ones have come more recently,” she says. “As our characters have matured a lot, our health is always in jeopardy.”
One difficult scene, in particular, was when Doug “died”. “They had him laid out in the Horton living room in a coffin,” she recalls. “It was absolutely terrible for me.”
More: Days’ off-screen Williams family reunion
She goes on to reference an older storyline where Julie was on the farm cooking with Rogers’ Maggie. When Julie opens the oven door, “the fire from the grease and the oven flies out over me.” Thankfully, Seaforth Hayes, whose character catches on fire, had a double, but Rogers did not and was tasked with rushing in to put out the flames.
“If she’s in that situation for more than thirty seconds,” Seaforth Hayes says of the stunt double, “the fire penetrates through the fire retardant and can kill her. Can cook her like a custard. Everybody was screaming their head off.”
Luckily, the take went off without a hitch, but, between the screams and the flames seen in the clip, you can sense how terrifying it must have been to shoot.
More: Tribute to Frances Reid and her iconic Days matriarch
Since it’s a video closing out March’s Women’s History Month, Rogers asked her co-star about the women who have influenced her. Of course, Days of Our Lives’ iconic matriarch, Alice Horton’s portrayer was brought up.
Prefacing her thoughts by noting Frances Reid played her grandmother on the show, she recalled thinking, “Okay, Frances, I understand that you’re the boss.”
“Frances took being the boss very seriously with a lot of us,” she continues. “She was an example of how to do it right the first time through.”
What are your favorite Julie and Maggie moments throughout the years? Tell us in the comments!
Check out the photo gallery below of the gorgeous Days of Our Lives cast portraits.
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