Days of Our Lives’ Drake Hogestyn Introduces an Entertainment Legend — and a Shocking New Character?!
Sunday, December 18th, 2022
Now this would be true entertainment royalty on the show!
Honestly, seeing Days of Our Lives‘ Drake Hogestyn at the gym is not at all surprising to us. John is still one of Salem’s heroes, never afraid to go charging around to the rescue whenever someone’s in trouble. Hogestyn’s got to keep in shape to keep up with him!
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But as impressive as that is, seeing who the actor’s been working out with on Instagram really floored us!
“Happy 97th Birthday to my workout buddy, Dick Van Dyke” Hogestyn wrote on his post with a photo of the legend himself. “Can you Imagine if Dick and Bill Hayes worked together on Days? Gotta be a record in there somewhere… 97×2!!”
OK, we’re not usually huge math fans, but that’s an equation we kind of love!
The fans wholeheartedly agreed on having the acting legend visit Salem, offering ideas on everything from a duet between Hayes and Van Dyke to just having him stop into the Brady Pub for a bite to eat. Christopher Sean (ex-Paul) and Eric Martsolf (Brady) both seemed to get behind this idea, but even more importantly, so too did Doug and Julie themselves, Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes!
Over on their official Instagram account, they offered a poll on their story asking, “Who would you love Dick to play?”
And the fans answered! (And so did we — sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.)
As for what the people have decided, the narrow consensus seemed to be for Van Dyke to play “Doug’s long lost-brother” over “A fellow ‘con man’ from Doug’s past!”
But we say… why not both?
He wouldn’t be the first brother of course. That honor went to Doug’s half-sibling — but identical doppelgänger — Byron Carmichael, also played by Hayes. In fact, his 1979 death is where the Williams family got their fortune — and brought the scheming Lee DuMonde to town to marry Doug and try swiping it back.
But we digress!
How about Van Dyke playing one of Doug’s old con buddies who comes to town looking for his old partner to pull a fast one, only for them to discover that they’d been (non-identical) twin brothers all this time and had been separated at birth! And maybe he can try (and fail, of course) wooing Julie while he’s at it, you know, just to flip that Lee DuMonde story around a bit.
What do you think? Who would you like to see Van Dyke play?
Check out our photo gallery of all the actors returning or who have returned to Days of Our Lives!
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<p>The daytime vet (perhaps best known for her run as vixenish Lorie on <em>The Young and the Restless</em>) kicked off 2021 by announcing that she’d soon be back on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>, where she’d last played Jennifer’s mom, Laura, in 2018.</p>
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<p>When the fan fave left <em>Days of Our Lives</em> as the “late” Ciara, she made it clear that <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/comings-and-goings/571461/days-of-our-lives-victoria-konefal-exit-ciara-brady/" target="_blank">she hoped to work again with her castmates</a> down the road. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that she’d be popping in at Christmastime in 2020 so that her character could offer “widower” Ben — and, in a way, all of us — a bit of holiday cheer.</p>
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<p>That same promo — seriously, that thing was<em> jam-packed</em> with spoilers — previewed a return to Salem for the indefatigable scheme team of Tony and Anna, who seemed to know more about Gwen than the rest of us. At the very <em>least</em> more than Abby!</p>
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<p>That same promo video teased a happy homecoming for the legacy character played by this three-time Emmy winner. But would Will be visiting Salem with better half Sonny? <em>That</em> question remained unanswered. Credit where credit is due: The show even builds cliffhangers into its ads!</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=921Tfv3oYGU" target="_blank"><em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ promo for winter 2020</a> revealed that Steve and Kayla’s son would be receiving a Get Out of Jail Free Card for Christmas: Since Ava wasn’t dead, Joey obviously hadn’t murdered her!</p>
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<p>In late October of 2020, the <em>Melrose Place</em> alum revealed via social media that she had returned to work at <em>Days of Our Lives — </em>and just in time for Valerie to be on hand for the birth of her grandbabies, too.</p>
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<p>Just in time for Halloween, the veteran actor was slated to return the villainous Orpheus to the canvas (along with James Read as Clyde and William Utay as Rolf). Call us paranoid, but something tells us that Salem’s own Evil League of Evil isn’t getting together again to carve pumpkins and hand out candy.</p>
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<p>Only the good die young. So it was a safe bet that when this Emmy winner returned as manipulative Ava Vitali, as was announced in early September, the character was gonna have a pulse. And also an agenda. (She <em>is</em> manipulative!)</p>
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<p>“Here comes trouble,” you can just hear all of Salem grumble whenever the veteran actor brings back mad scientist Dr. Rolf, as he was set to do in September. Then again, you can also hear <em>viewers</em> going, “This is gonna be fun!” </p>
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<p>According to <em>Days of our Lives</em>’ fall-preview video, JJ Deveraux is getting out of Africa and returning home. Fingers crossed he forgets to pack the hangdog expression with which he’d stuck his handsome mug for so long!</p>
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<p>All aboard the crazy train! After Lindell reprised her memorable role of loco-en-la-cabeza Jan Spears in <em>Days of our Lives</em>’ <em>Last Blast Reunion</em> digital series in early 2020, it was announced that she’d be bringing our favorite nut (other than cashew) back to Salem.</p>
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<p>Thrilled as we were to hear that <em>Days of our Lives</em> was getting another visit from the actress, a favorite since her run as <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ Patty and Emily, a part of us wanted to just say, “But… but can’t we <em>keep</em> her?” Whether Kristen’s gone off the deep end or is toeing the line, we’re crazy about her.</p>
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<p>Who knew that Tripp’s full name was actually <em>Return</em> Tripp? We sure didn’t — not until it was announced that his portrayer was bringing Steve’s son back to Salem. The question then became… hmm, which gal was going to make his pulse race? <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/days-of-our-lives/news/574857/days-of-our-lives-lucas-adams-tripp-allie-babydaddy/" target="_blank">(Read our educated guesses here.)</a></p>
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<p>After being off the <em>Days of our Lives</em> canvas for two months — wait, did it only <em>feel</em> like two years?!? — Brady’s portrayer was scheduled to make his return to Salem in late August. We, in turn, were scheduled to set our DVRs. Well, <em>double</em>-set them; we’d never miss an episode!</p>
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