Over the course of her nearly 50-year run on Days of Our Lives, Deidre Hall‘s Marlena has seen it all, from presumed deaths to battles with the devil and unforgettable love stories.
“Being cast on Days changed my life,” Hall reflects. “I was doing episodic television, which was fine, and I enjoyed it, but it was a very unpredictable future. I went over and did The Young and the Restless (as Barbara Anderson) for a few years off and on — more off than on —and I called my agent and I said, ‘I want to do a soap. I like them. People have the same dressing room and they’re friends for years and they vacation together and they do things together.’ And he said, ‘There’s a part on Days of Our Lives. Are you sure?’ And that was that, as they say. I was thrilled. I knew I’d found a place that was always going to feel like home.”
As Days marks its 60th anniversary on November 8, Hall looks back on some memorable moments from her five-decade run.
© NBC /Courtesy Everett Collection
First Things First
Hall was hired in 1976 when the show was recasting Laura Horton, played by Susan Oliver, with Rosemary Forsyth. “I was brought in as a psychiatrist to bridge the two actresses who were Laura,” Hall explains. “Mickey Horton (John Clarke) had had a nervous breakdown, and that took Marlena to the sanitarium. My first scene was with him, and I just thought, ‘What a lovely man.’ His ease, the tenor of his voice, and the calmness and the comfortability that he had, owning that room, owning that space, knowing who he was, knowing what he was bringing to it, was just spellbinding to me.”
Her first interaction with Macdonald Carey (Tom Horton), Frances Reid (Alice Horton), and Mary Frann (Amanda Howard) was equally memorable. “I was watching them work and just sort of dazzled by them doing this scene,” she says. “They were obviously talking about the character of Amanda, and then I come into it. Tom Horton introduces me as Dr. Evans, and I say, ‘No, no, no. Please just call me Amanda.’ And then I thought, ‘Why is it so quiet?’ And I waited and I waited and finally, Mac said, ‘No, darling. She’s Amanda. You’re Marlena.’”
Despite that hiccup, Marlena was off and running — and so was Hall’s extraordinary run in Salem.
Charron / TV Guide / ©NBC / courtesy Everett Collection
Seeing Double
Of course, few storylines were as unforgettable as the one that doubled the drama, literally. One of the biggest highlights for Hall was working with her twin sister, Andrea Hall, who played Marlena’s twin, Samantha Evans, on and off from 1977-82 and Hattie Adams from 2000-2001.
Andrea’s initial hire was born out of a discussion with the soap’s top scribe. “Anne Marcus, our beloved head writer at the time, took meetings with a few of the lead actors, and one of her questions was, ‘What is a storyline you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t?’” relays Hall. “So, I said, ‘Gosh, I think it’d be fun to do a story with my twin sister.’ And she put her pen down and said, ‘What? You have a twin sister? Is she identical?’ And then the game changed. She said, ‘Can we get her?’ I said, ‘She’s a special education teacher in Virginia. I don’t know. Let me ask.’
Andrea was flown to Los Angeles to begin taping. “She had no real training, which is another way of saying she was an absolute natural at it,” notes Hall. “At one point, it was directed that she would cry while giving testimony, and I said, ‘Look, here’s the thing about crying. You think you can because you can cry at home or you can cry in the car, and you can cry when you’re running lines, but when they roll tape, it doesn’t happen. So, when it doesn’t happen, don’t put your face in your hands and go boo-hoo-hoo.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I can cry.’ So, I was standing pretty far off stage during that testimony scene, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t start to cry. She walked off stage, and I said, ‘Just curious how you managed that.’ She said, ‘I mean, I’ve seen you cry. How hard can it be?’ So that’s a twinship — if she can do it, I can do it.”
When Samantha was killed by the Salem Strangler in 1982, fans thought it was Marlena who died and formed a picket line at the studio. “I was at work that day, and Al Rabin (executive producer) knocked on the door, and he said, ‘There is apparently a picket line around the studio about you being killed off.’ I said, ‘Wow, what?’ It aired in New York, and word traveled fast, and people were not having it. So, they circled the studio, and if I went outside, they’d know I was working that day and that Marlena’s not dead. Al decided it was worth the risk of sharing that knowledge, so I went out and met with fans. It was a simpler time, secrets were secrets, and storylines stayed mysterious and weren’t being leaked, so you could surprise an audience.”
But humor, not shocking twists, would define some of Hall’s fondest memories on set.
Laugh In
“I loved working with (the late) Wayne [Northrop, Roman Brady],” smiles Hall. “He was the most irreverent actor that ever walked on a stage, so you had to be especially prepared because you never knew what curveball you’d be thrown. He had no respect for the time element or the structure of the show. If it was funny, he was gonna do it.”
Mario Casilli/TV Guide/©NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Northrop’s practical jokes were legendary on stage. “One time, Roman had gone on some assignment for months and months, and he comes back for Christmas Eve, and when we shot it, I opened the door and there he stood with a trench coat opened on both sides, and the entire inside of the trench coat was hung with Christmas bulbs. I mean, ridiculous. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for a joke. There was a point where he had to run and jump into a bed for some reason, and I said to the prop department, ‘Can you get me a big container of warm water?’ So, before he had to begin that scene, I went over to the set and poured warm water in the bed. And then, of course, everybody stood around and waited until they called cut. He came out of that bed so fast, and I ran so fast. Everybody got out of both of our ways, and I didn’t run fast enough, and he threw me, fully clothed, in my shower. So, it was a complete redo — my wardrobe was soaking wet, my hair was soaking wet. He was just a completely irreverent, funny, dear man.”
That she’s still there to mark the soap’s milestone anniversary means the world to Hall. “There are no guarantees,” she points out. “You start with a 13-week contract. Back then, magazines had popularity polls, and I thought, ‘You like me? You really like me? Oh, wow. That’s nice.’ I think it brands us with a bit of confidence when we know our audience is pulling for us and wants to see us on camera.”
After so many years in Salem, Hall remains as passionate as the viewers who have taken the journey with her. “It’s been 50 years, it’s new every day, and I couldn’t be happier,” she concludes. “Sixty years is such a really good thing to celebrate.”
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