‘Days of Our Lives’: Susan Seaforth Hayes Talks Romantic Final Scene With Bill Hayes

Stephanie Sloane July 10, 2024, 4:06 pm

Susan Seaforth Hayes and Bill Hayes — Everett Collection, Instagram

This Thursday, July 11, will be a bittersweet day for Days of our Lives’ Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie Williams). The fan-favorite actress is celebrating her 81^st birthday, but the date also marks the final time that Bill Hayes (Doug Williams), her longtime costar and husband of nearly 50 years who died in January 2024, will last air on the soap.

While shooting the episode, Seaforth Hayes says she had a sense that these would be the final scenes they’d film together. “I knew it that day and that was four weeks before he died,” she recalls. “And the last few shows that he did, he was completely blind. So there! In show business, you rise to the occasion or you never get to have another occasion. And he always did.”

It was important to the actress to signal the end of their working relationship, which began on camera in 1970, in a meaningful way. “The last scene that Billy and I shot together, it was created as a love scene, three quarters of which is occupied by storyline about Chad and his ongoing search for his lost love, and a transition to Doug and Julie telling each other how much they care about each other,” Seaforth Hayes explains. “And I was allowed to add some lines to the scene, between ourselves. The last line I wrote for Billy was, ‘Give me another kiss.’ So that’s for the audience, and that’s from him.”

The fact that the episode timed out to air on her birthday, she notes, is, “pretty cool,” but that’s not the only significant date related to his passing. “He died on the 12th of January and the 12th of January was the day that we were on the cover of Time magazine [in 1976],” she shares.

A wonderful memory! ❤️❤️ https://t.co/eQbpdkdJFD

— Bill & Susan Hayes (@DaysHayes) January 13, 2022

With Days’ unique production schedule — they film up to seven months in advance — Doug’s death will take place this fall, and the 15,000th episode of the soap will be devoted to the character Hayes played for 54 years. Seaforth Hayes says she was touched when she heard the show’s plans, adding, “Nothing but great gratitude, great gratitude. And very proud.”

The actress has been cheered by the outpouring of love for her late husband. “I’m magnificently supported by all the people that love Bill that I knew, and then all the people that I didn’t even know who love Bill,” Seaforth Hayes notes. “People come up to me in the street, I get actual mail from people, I see lots of comments on the Instagram page and the various platforms. I thought I was the one that understood him and loved him so much, but I wasn’t the only one, and that’s been very gratifying.”

Everett Collection

When she’s not at the set, Seaforth Hayes is adjusting to her new reality of widowhood. “It’s very lonely,” she admits. “My assistant Amy, who is the daughter of Anne Schoettle and [Days director] David Shaughnessy, brother of Charlie Shaughnessy [ex-Shane Donovan, Days], lives with me but we still say adios around five o’clock in the afternoon, so I fill the next 12 hours or more with other things than companionship. There are so many treasures from Bill’s career that I’m still searching in my heart for where I should put them that they’ll have the most impact and mean the most to people. I need to finish the novel that Billy and I were working on for nearly 10 years.

She continues, “But the best thing has been able to continue to work, which never stopped, particularly around the time of his passing, and since. The show has kept me alive, and Ken [Corday, executive producer] has been exceedingly sweet. And Ron Carlivati, our head writer, has asked me, ‘What do you think Julie is feeling?’ And I answered and he has created scenes that work that way, which has been very gratifying, very lovely.”

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She’s also done a lot of reflecting on her life and upbringing. “I realized after he was gone that I had been loved in a straight line all my life,” she shares. “My mother and grandmother, my parents who raised me, loved me. And before my mother was gone, Bill came into my life and she adored him, too. So I had all of that time — 80 years of being loved significantly. The support of knowing that somebody cares was terrific. I see the lives of so many people that have never had that, not even for a minute anywhere, and it makes a difference. It empowers you to think you deserve to be here. Even in show business, which is a great test, because you gotta prove yourself every single day. So, I haven’t had the stress of doing anything alone, really, and now I will have to.”

But her memories of the love she and Hayes shared will last a lifetime. “He was a super guy,” she describes. “So super that I knew on my wedding day [October 12, 1974] that he would never step away from me and this was his commitment for the rest of his life. I was crying through the wedding ceremony because it was a real sacrament. This was it. It was a turning point in my life. It made my life worthwhile. Carly Simon had a song called ‘Love Is Eternal’, and there’s a line in the verse about where does the soul go? Does it soar like jazz on a saxophone? And I like to think of Bill’s as turning into music.”

Days of our Lives, Weekdays, Peacock