‘Days’ Icon Susan Seaforth Hayes Looks Back on Highs (Julie-Doug Wedding) & Lows (That Disfiguring Fire)

In 1968, Susan Seaforth Hayes was hired as the fourth actress to play Days of Our Lives‘ resident troublemaker, Julie Olson, a role that would change the course of her life forever.

“The gift of Days of Our Lives to the public is, you can turn it on and turn it off,” Seaforth Hayes begins. “But the gift of Days of our Lives to my life is I never had to turn it off. The gift of being able to act all these years has been incredible. I thank God for it every night when I say grace at dinner. Now I say grace at dinner alone, but I try to say it out loud to remind myself of what a lucky woman I am.”

As the show celebrates 60 years on November 8, Seaforth Hayes looks back at some of the defining moments — on-screen and off — that shaped both Julie’s story and her own.

NBC/courtesy Everett Collection

In The Beginning

Before Salem became her home, Seaforth Hayes appeared as Dorothy Bradley on General Hospital in 1964, an experience that couldn’t have been more different from Days.

“Days was a small and very companionable cast,” she recalls. “The mood in the workplace was much more cheerful than the General Hospital set, where nobody ever dared laugh. The old campaigners, Mac [Carey, Tom Horton] and Frances [Reid, Alice Horton], were very welcoming and very kind. I had been in television and live television since childhood, and in those days, like now, we shot the show as though it was live, so you had the sense of ‘it’s a performance right now’ and it was well-rehearsed. It was extremely professional and exciting. We all looked forward to the next script because the stories were moving interestingly, and the canvas was smaller and richer. Everybody had much more responsibility, and consequently, you were part of an ensemble. You weren’t part of a parade.”

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Love Story

Everything changed in 1970 when Julie met Doug Williams, and Seaforth Hayes met the love of her life, actor Bill Hayes. The duo wed in 1974, staying together until his death in 2024.

“The first storyline that was extremely significant to me was when Julie was united with Doug, and though they were deeply in love, he married Julie’s mother,” Seaforth Hayes says. “This was a striking emotional arc that carried on for a few years. It came out of the blue. It shocked my character. It shocked the audience, and Julie’s reaction was to marry the first person that came along, kind of in retribution. This spun out for a long time, that they loved each other and longed for each other, but couldn’t have each other. It was wonderful to play. I was told by Jack Herzberg (producer), ‘You’re never gonna work with Bill Hayes again. That’s it. That’s over.’ The bottom of my world dropped out. I was absolutely madly in love with him. Fortunately for me, the plot changed, and I had an acting partner that I admired and respected all our lives together.”

Everett Collection

I Do, Take Two

By the mid-70s, Doug and Julie weren’t just a hit couple, they were cultural icons, even landing on the cover of Time magazine in 1976. Their romance continued to be challenged, and after divorcing in 1979, they wed again in 1981.

“I loved Doug and Julie’s second wedding, where we had to stand up to the evil Lee DuMonde, played by Brenda Benet, and then were rewarded by this beautiful wedding ceremony,” Seaforth Hayes recalls. “It was particularly beautiful to me because we were allowed to write our own vows, and we pulled in everything we loved. Our favorite song at the time was ‘The Rose,’ and Patty Weaver (Trish Clayton) got to sing it. John Clarke (Mickey Horton) got to recite a poem that Bill’s grandfather had written, and the people in the audience were members of our church choir. It was a wonderful day, and that’s a huge memory.”

Burn Notice

In 1979, Seaforth Hayes faced one of her most challenging storylines when Julie’s face was horribly scarred in a kitchen fire, a plot written by the actress’ own mother, Elizabeth Harrower, then-head writer of the show.

“I knew exactly where the stories were coming from because I’d lived through them,” Seaforth Hayes explains. “When she burned up my face, I knew where that story came from, and I knew the family that it had happened to.”

NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection

What was meant to be a brief storyline turned into one of the most emotionally charged tales of her career. “It was supposed to be a six-week story, and it went on for six months because apparently the network liked it,” she relays. “They glued the scab on my face every day, and the dermatologist told me, ‘If you’re ripping that off every day, you’re going to have a beard on that side of your face.’”

One romantic encounter still stands out vividly in her memory. “We had one wonderful scene that maybe Bill suggested,” she shares. “Julie was living alone in her apartment with self-doubts about her attractiveness, and she’s run away from Doug and divorced him because she has a big mark on her face from the fire. It was a carnival night, and Doug was in tragic clown makeup with a little tear under one eye. He came to Julie’s apartment dressed that way. The music behind him was the waltz from Carousel, and he mimed that he loved her and gave her his broken heart. And she had been taking medication for the pain, and she thought he was a dream. That was a very romantic moment. The last time Billy and I went to the opera, we saw Audra McDonald. Billy’s first job in theater was a chorus boy in the national tour of Carousel, and the overture to the concert was the Carousel waltz and I was so happy to have that moment for both of us.”

Fifty-seven years after first stepping into Salem, Seaforth Hayes marvels that she’s still there. “I imagined I would move through this to perhaps films,” she reflects. “I thought I was running out of time when I got the show. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be an ingenue much longer and I haven’t been discovered.’ And then, I was in this whirlwind of a show that was growing in its success, with accomplished actors who had interesting personalities.”

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Today, Seaforth Hayes stands as proof of Days’ staying power — and her own. “I’ve watched it mature and not fade away,” she says. “It has been a cornucopia of everything that life’s about: loss, gain, love, anger, frustration, education and more. Some people live a life that goes worldwide. Some people get to travel. Some have great gains and great losses. I’ve had a soap opera, and I like to think I’ve had a good life out of it.”

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