‘Days of Our Lives’: Stephen Schnetzer Returning as Steve Olson
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Look who’s coming back to Salem: Stephen Schnetzer, who starred as Steve Olson on Days of Our Lives more than four decades ago, says he’s been invited back to the NBC-turned-Peacock soap.
“I have an announcement to make — breaking news,” Schnetzer said in a live episode of the YouTube show The Locher Room on Friday. “As far as I know, next week I’m flying out to L.A. I hope I’m not giving anything up, but they’ve asked Steve Olson to come back for a couple of episodes. I’ll say no more than that.”
Schnetzer may have said too much, however. “Are we streaming? We’re live, aren’t we?” he said. “Yeah. I lie all the time. Always lying.”
In any case, the announcement thrilled fans. “Get out! That is great news!” one person wrote in the chat of that YouTube livestream.
“Yay! So excited, Stephen!” another said.
Schnetzer played Steve, son of Addie Horton (Patricia Barry) and Ben Olson (Robert Knapp) and brother of Julie Williams (Susan Seaforth Hayes), on Days of Our Lives from 1978 to 1980, according to Soap Opera Digest.
Looking back on that time, Schnetzer told Digest in 2019 that he was “so awful” when he started on Days after doing theater for eight years. “Here I am projecting to the back wall of the film studio, and the boom is right above you,” he said. “It took me longer to get comfortable in front of a camera than anybody I ever saw in the 22 years I was in daytime. They were very patient. Susan and Bill Hayes [who played Doug Williams] were lovely.”
After leaving Days to star in the Broadway play Filumena in 1980, Schnetzer returned to daytime TV, playing the character Cass Winthrop on Another World, Guiding Light, and As the World Turns. More recently, the actor guest-starred on Billions, Elementary, and The Endgame; he appeared in the film Nyad; and he started playing Richard Kaufman on the online soap The Bay.
