How Being Rejected by ‘Y&R’ Led Suzanne Rogers to 52 Years on ‘Days of Our Lives’

When Suzanne Rogers was hired to play Maggie Simmons on Days of Our Lives in 1973, she was completely unfamiliar with daytime dramas.

“I had never watched a soap,” she explains. “I had done theater, which was nighttime, and matinees during the day, so I had never been home to watch a soap, and I didn’t know anything about the workings of a soap. All of a sudden, they signed me to a seven-year contract, and I went, ‘Whoa, OK.’ For the first time in my life, I wasn’t worried about a show opening and closing in a year or not getting a show at all.”

Despite landing the role that would define her career, Days wasn’t originally where Rogers was headed. In fact, Rogers was being considered to be a part of the original cast of The Young and the Restless, which was created by Days’ head writer, William J. Bell. “It was before Young and Restless went on the air,” Rogers explains. “Al Onorato was the casting director for Young and Restless, and he came to see Follies at the Shubert Theater and saw me in it. At that time, it was explained to me that the story of the main family [the Brooks clan] on Young and Restless was that they were all musical and they sang.”

Rogers flew to Los Angeles and met with executive producer John Conboy, who quickly realized she didn’t quite fit the description of the part. “The first thing he said to me was, ‘Where’s your blonde hair?’ And I said, ‘I’ve never been a blonde.’ And he said, ‘Well, in the main story, all the girls are blonde.’”

NBC /Courtesy Everett Collection

Although the meeting didn’t lead to a role on Y&R, Onorato sent her audition tape to Days’ executive producer, Betty Corday, who was seeking the right actress to play Maggie, a sheltered farm girl who relied on crutches after a childhood car crash that claimed her parents’ lives.

“I was one of eight women that read for two of the executives at NBC and Betty and John Clarke (Mickey Horton),” Rogers recalls. “And John started to cry. We were doing a sad scene, but it was the very first time that Maggie appeared, and whether it was because I was on crutches or whether it was just the scene, I don’t know, but they thanked me and I left. As I was driving out of the lot, this car pulled up beside me, and it was John. He motioned for me to roll my window down, and he said, ‘You just knocked me out.’ And I said, ‘Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you very much.’ That was on a Friday, and I didn’t hear anything from my agent on Monday or Tuesday, and finally, on Tuesday, I called him and I said, ‘What happened? I guess I didn’t get it.’ And he said, ‘Oh, you have to go over there and pick up your crutches.’”

That call would mark the beginning of a legendary run. Fifty-two years later, Rogers holds the distinction of winning the first-ever Outstanding Supporting Actress award at the Daytime Emmys in 1979, and appreciates that today, Maggie is still a vital part of Salem. Here, she looks back at some of her favorite storylines.

Red Shoe Diaries

When Mickey Horton first met Maggie Simmons in 1973, he had amnesia and thought his name was Marty Hansen. Though a lawyer in his real life, “Marty” became Maggie’s new farmhand, and they fell in love. In time, he regained his memory and encouraged her to get an operation to help her walk again.

As a former Rockette, portraying a character with physical limitations required a new kind of discipline for Rogers. “Well, the first thing I said to the producers was, ‘It’s a good thing you hired a dancer because she has to run a house on crutches,’” she recalls. “In other shows, they put people in wheelchairs, but they wouldn’t let me go in a wheelchair — they wanted me on crutches. So, first of all, it was scary. No matter what part I did, I could always fall back on the fact that I was a dancer, and I could move, and I could get their mind off of what I didn’t know how to do. Well, this was a show that that wasn’t going to happen, so I was really scared.”

Columbia TriStar Television/ Courtesy: Everett Collection

Clarke helped to calm her jitters. “John said to me, ‘Use that, use your nerves as part of your character, because you’re going to be nervous,’” she relays. “And so I did. There were all these things to play where I could use the nervousness and anxiety: Her not thinking that she was good enough because she was crippled, finding out who he was, a lawyer, and that he  used to have a wife that was a doctor and she’s beautiful blonde … the emotional part of it was just there.”

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But it was a special gift from Mickey that kept Maggie motivated through her surgery. “When Maggie was in the hospital being operated on by Mickey’s brother, Bill Horton, Mickey said, ‘When you get well and you get out of the hospital, we will go dancing,’” Rogers says. “And he came in the room with this box, and in it were a pair of red shoes. So, when she did get well through therapy, Mickey took Maggie out dancing, and she wore a red dress and had the red shoes on.”

For Rogers, it was a powerful beginning, one that set the tone for everything to come. “I love that story,” she enthuses. “Bill Bell (then-head writer) wrote a wonderful story for me.”

“Magic” Hour

In 2010, Clarke retired from acting, and Mickey died off-screen. Maggie ultimately found love again with an unlikely partner — Victor Kiriakis, played by John Aniston.

“They had the funeral for Mickey and several days later, there was a knock on my kitchen door, and when Maggie opened the door, it was Victor Kiriakis standing there with flowers in his hand, and it was a shock,” Rogers recalls. “I had never had any scenes with him over the years, but Maggie invited him in, and he expressed his sorrow that she had lost her husband and that he would be there if he if she needed anybody. And it was the audience that put us together. The audience said, ‘Whoa. We like her with him.’”

John Paschal/jpistudios.com

What began as a brief scene of shared grief soon developed into one of the show’s most surprising duos. Fans not only embraced the duo, they gave them a portmanteau. “They named us ‘Magic,’” Rogers muses. “One day, John said, ‘You’re the Mag and I’m the ic. What is that?’ That was his sense of humor.”

Rogers found an instant connection with Aniston and felt Maggie and Victor were well-suited. “We just got along really well, and I was just thrilled to work with him,” she says. “Victor had had a lot of wives on the show, but he never really had a woman that didn’t want his money, and Maggie had her own money from having two restaurants. And that seemed to be the trigger that put us together.”

And through Victor, Maggie herself evolved. “When she was married to Mickey, she was his wife, and she sat in the back of the courtroom,” observes Rogers. “With Victor, she found her voice, and I think he liked that. I think Victor liked that here was a woman who was definitely a lady but who was not going to take any s**t from him, and that’s also why they loved each other.”

Five decades in, Rogers remains as grateful as ever to be a part of Days. “I can’t believe that I’m still on the show,” she marvels. “And I am so thrilled the show is still on the air. What can I tell you? I’m the luckiest girl around.”

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