70 Fun Facts About Days of Our Lives

In what year did Days of Our Lives premiere on NBC?

It debuted on November 8, 1965, and spent its first three seasons near the bottom of the daytime ratings before climbing to number one by 1973.

The fictional city of Salem, where the show is set, sits in which US state?

The Cordays deliberately made Salem a middle-America town of doctors and their families, blending the hospital soap with a family saga.

The show's famous opening line compares the days of our lives to sands running through what object?

The hourglass sequence also closed every episode until November 2001, when NBC swapped it for a split-screen promo reel.

Which original cast member played Dr. Tom Horton and read the opening narration from 1966 until his death?

His introduction originally continued 'This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives'; that second line was retired after he died in 1994, but his voice still opens the show.

Which announcer spoke the show's opening phrase in its first months, before the Horton patriarch's actor took over?

Prentiss followed the line by billing the show as 'a new dramatic serial' starring its Horton patriarch during that first season.

Horton matriarch Alice Horton was famous around Salem for making what treat?

They even became a plot device: Alice once used a drugged batch to help Bo spring Roman from custody.

Frances Reid, who played Alice Horton from the very first episode, died in which year?

She was 95 and still under contract to the show, though her final on-screen appearance had come in December 2007; the character was written out that June with a reunion of past cast members.

Which sweet-sounding nickname does the ever-resurrecting villain Stefano DiMera go by?

His signet ring bears the bird, and the show treats it as the reason he keeps rising from the dead; his sons EJ, Andre and Chad have all worn it.

In which 1981 NBC miniseries did Joseph Mascolo play mob boss Salvatore Maranzano, landing him the Stefano role?

Mascolo first appeared as Stefano on January 18, 1982, and would play him on and off for 34 years.

When Mascolo left Days in 2001, he turned up as Massimo Marone on which CBS soap?

He played Massimo from 2001 to 2006, then came home to Salem in 2007 alongside Thaao Penghlis and Leann Hunley.

Which grieving Salem resident finally shot Stefano dead in January 2016?

She believed he was responsible for Bo's recent death; as he fell back into his wheelchair his hand knocked over the chess pieces he loved.

Stefano's portrayer had a supporting role as Len Peterson in which 1978 sequel?

Mascolo was also a trained clarinettist and studied acting under Stella Adler before his film career.

When Marlena became possessed by the devil in the mid-1990s, who performed the emergency exorcism?

John happened to be a priest then; Soap Opera Digest said the story changed daytime storytelling in the 1990s.

Which magazine dismissed the possession storyline as 'The Dumbest Soap Plot Ever'?

Ratings disagreed: the supernatural era made Days the most-watched soap among young and middle-aged women and one of NBC's five most profitable shows.

Which head writer was behind both the possession story and the later Salem Stalker saga?

He left in 1997 to create Passions, was lured back in 2003, and his stories pushed Days to number two in the ratings.

The 2003-04 Salem Stalker was eventually unmasked as which beloved character?

It later emerged she had been brainwashed by Andre DiMera, and every 'victim' turned up alive on a tropical island.

The Stalker's victims were found alive on the island of Melaswen, a name that is what spelled backward?

The reveal was so grand that the show introduced a new orchestration of its theme for it, then dropped it after eight episodes.

Which lounge-singer character did Bill Hayes originate in 1970 and play until 2024?

The character's final appearance streamed posthumously on Peacock in July 2024; Hayes was 98 when he died.

In 1976 Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes became the only daytime actors to make the cover of which magazine?

The couple had married in real life in 1974 and their characters Doug and Julie are widely counted as daytime's first supercouple.

Long before Salem, Bill Hayes topped the Billboard charts in 1955 with which song?

Three different recordings of the song sat in the top 30 at once during the coonskin-cap craze; Hayes had earlier sung on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows.

Susan Seaforth Hayes, the only cast member in all seven decades of the show, plays whom?

She first appeared in December 1968 as a recast of an original character; her mother, Elizabeth Harrower, later wrote for the show.

Which actress has played Maggie Horton on Days of Our Lives since 1973?

She marked 50 years on the show in 2023 and won a Daytime Emmy for the role back in 1979.

Drake Hogestyn made his debut in January 1986 as a bandaged mystery man known by what name?

A former minor-league third baseman, he was considered too young for the part until his screen test with Deidre Hall won it.

Hogestyn's amnesiac 1986 character was revealed to be which presumed-dead Salem police officer?

When the original actor returned in 1991 the show retconned Hogestyn's version into a separate man, creating the John and Marlena pairing.

Before acting, Drake Hogestyn played third base in the farm system of which Major League team?

He had gone to the University of South Florida on a baseball scholarship as a pre-dentistry major, and was injured in 1977.

Marlena arrived in Salem in 1976 practising which profession?

She was introduced as one of Mickey Horton's doctors, and her jealous twin sister Samantha was played by Deidre Hall's real-life twin, Andrea.

Deidre Hall starred as which Saturday-morning superheroine for Sid and Marty Krofft in 1976?

She later juggled Days with the NBC drama Our House by taping the soap on Saturdays.

Kristian Alfonso, who played Hope, won a gold medal at age 13 in which sport before an injury ended it?

A tobogganing accident forced her to quit; she then signed with Wilhelmina Models before her first Days air date on April 14, 1983.

In 1999, Stefano brainwashed Hope into believing she was which European royal?

The alter ego fell for John and kidnapped him, so Stefano exiled her to Paris.

Peter Reckell first aired as Bo Brady in which year?

Rebellious blue-collar Bo was quickly paired with upper-class Hope Williams, one of daytime's defining supercouples.

Which actor stepped in as Bo from 1992 to 1995 while Peter Reckell was away?

Reckell reclaimed the part in August 1995 and stayed until 2012, returning to kill Bo off in the show's 50th-anniversary year.

Before Bo, Peter Reckell played Eric Hollister on which CBS soap?

He first aired there in March 1980; later he spent a season on Knots Landing as Johnny Rourke.

While Alison Sweeney was on maternity leave in 2005, Sami stayed on Days disguised as a man named what?

Actor Dan Wells played the disguise, and returned for a single episode in 2021 when Sami dusted it off again.

Alison Sweeney won a special fan-voted Daytime Emmy in 2002 with what title?

She took over the rapidly-aged Sami on January 22, 1993, having already played little Adrienne Johnson on the show in 1987.

Chandler Massey won three straight Daytime Emmys for Younger Actor as which character?

His 2012 win made him the first actor ever to take a Daytime Emmy for playing a gay character.

Years before Supernatural, Jensen Ackles played which Salem character from 1997 to 2000?

The role earned him three straight Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Younger Actor before he left for Dark Angel.

On Friends, Joey's Days character Dr. Drake Ramoray was killed off in what way?

The writers punished Joey for boasting in a Soap Opera Digest interview that he wrote most of his own lines.

Which Oscar winner played the Friends soap actress whose character's brain revives Drake Ramoray?

She played Cecilia Monroe, portrayer of the in-universe Jessica Lockhart, in the episode 'The One With Joey's New Brain'.

Jennifer Aniston's father John Aniston played which Days patriarch from 1985 until his death in 2022?

So while Joey was pretending to work on Days, a real Friends parent had been a Salem fixture for a decade.

Alison Sweeney appeared on Friends not as Sami but as a fictional Days cast member with what name?

Kristian Alfonso, by contrast, showed up as her real character Hope, playing a patient of Dr. Ramoray.

The show moved from NBC to Peacock in what year, ending a 57-year network run?

The move left NBC as the first Big Three network without a daytime soap, and only three soaps remaining on broadcast television.

Which program replaced Days of Our Lives in its NBC daytime slot after the move to streaming?

It competes with ABC's GMA3; a 2025 Luminate report ranked Days the second-biggest program on Peacock, behind Love Island USA.

On December 2, 2024, the show celebrated which episode milestone?

By that point it had been renewed through 2028, taking it into its 63rd season.

Daily episodes expanded from 30 to 60 minutes in which year?

The cast grew to 27 actors, and NBC's Another World had become the first hour-long soap just three and a half months earlier.

Through 2018, how many times had the show won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series?

The wins came in 1978, 2013, 2015 and 2018; the show's Tom Horton took the very first Outstanding Actor award in 1974.

The Cordays asked Boyce and Hart for a theme sounding like 'Sunrise, Sunset' from which Broadway musical?

The result, orchestrated by Charles Albertine, was the first soap theme played by a full orchestra; it has been rearranged only twice since 1965.

Co-creator Ted Corday died of cancer roughly how long after the show premiered?

His widow Betty took over as executive producer, and their son Ken has run the show since 1986.

Ken Corday, executive producer since 1986, holds a master's degree in what subject?

He started on the show as a production assistant in 1977 and briefly served as head writer during the 1988 writers' strike.

Which soap-writing legend served as story editor in the show's early years?

She had already created Guiding Light and Another World and been dubbed the 'Queen of the Soaps'; the show's earliest storylines were written by her protege William J. Bell.

Early head writer William J. Bell left the show in 1975 to concentrate on which CBS soap he had created?

Bell had written for Days since 1966; Betty Corday later served as a consultant on his show.

Which sketch series ran the parody 'Days of the Week' with Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara?

The Simpsons also nodded to the show with its fictional soap 'It Never Ends' in the 2000 episode 'Pygmoelian'.

Per a 1976 Time report, which Supreme Court justice called a 1 p.m. recess to watch the show?

Other famous fans include Julia Roberts, who told the 2002 People's Choice Awards crowd she was 'freaking out' because the cast sat behind her.

Coverage of which sport put Australia's Nine Network nearly five years behind the US in the early 2000s?

Nine tried to catch viewers up with a 2004 special that crammed four years of plot into an hour, then dropped the show entirely in 2013.

The 2021 spinoff Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem premiered on Peacock with how many episodes?

They streamed one a day from September 6 to 10, 2021; a second five-episode chapter followed in July 2022 with Alfonso and Reckell aboard.

What was the title of the Peacock holiday film the show released in December 2021?

In it, Sami's son races a Christmas Eve deadline to write a script about his hometown's residents; Peacock later pulled the film from its library.

Dr. Tom Horton secretly read his own poetry in disguise under which pen name?

He kept it from Alice; the character died off screen in June 1994, three months after the actor who played him.

Which villain buried Dr. Carly Manning alive in the shocking 1993 storyline?

It was head writer James E. Reilly's first controversial plot, a year before the demonic possession saga.

Eileen Davidson played Kristen DiMera plus how many members of the look-alike Banks family?

One of them was male; the doppelganger Susan Banks bore John's child, EJ DiMera, on Stefano's orders.

What was the ship in the 1990 'Cruise of Deception' storyline called?

Madman Ernesto Toscano invited all his enemies aboard and held them captive.

Which classic film did Bo and Hope's 1984 plantation storyline pay homage to, timed for the Olympics?

They dressed as Scarlett and Rhett to keep viewers tuned in while ABC's soaps were pre-empted for the 1984 Games.

Who was introduced on June 23, 2011 as the show's first contract gay character?

Freddie Smith played him; Will Horton later came out and the two eventually married.

Which studio did Corday Productions sue in 2019, alleging it favoured The Young and the Restless?

The suit sought over $20 million and claimed Corday had been forced to absorb budget deficits.

Which actress, known as Nicole Walker, sued Corday Productions and Albert Alarr in 2024?

She alleged sexual harassment and wrongful termination; a settlement was filed in October 2025.

Which UK broadcaster bought the show to replace Sunset Beach in 2000, then dropped it after a year?

It also had short runs on UK Living, Sky Soap and Zone Romantica before the Sony Channel aired 2018 episodes in 2020.

What was Moe's fictional soap opera called in The Simpsons' 2000 episode 'Pygmoelian'?

Moe joins the cast after plastic surgery, only for an accident to restore his old face.

Which star, according to a 1998 Time article, wrote a poem about the show in her high school yearbook?

Julia Roberts, another fan, asked to sit near the cast at the 2002 People's Choice Awards.

Which pub debuted in the 1992 retooling that also introduced Kate Roberts and Billie Reed?

The same year brought a teen scene with Carrie, a SORASed Sami Brady, Lucas Roberts and Austin Reed.

What Whitechapel-inspired nickname was given to the 1982 Salem Strangler?

He stalked and murdered women in one of the show's earliest serial-killer plots.

By what acronym is Days of Our Lives commonly known?

The show has been renewed through its 63rd season in the 2027-28 television season.

On what date was the show officially 'rebooted' to win back lapsed viewers?

Jack Deveraux, Carrie Brady and Austin Reed returned, but the head writers hired for the reboot were later fired as ratings fell.