Days of Our Lives Star Susan Seaforth Hayes Reveals Some Tom And Alice Secrets

When the Days of our Lives Horton House burned down it seemed like the end of a Salem era that began nearly 60 years ago.

However, it looks like the house is going to be rebuilt better than ever before. Susan Seaforth Hayes has some thoughts on this shocking turn of events, as well as memories of the actors who spent much of DAYS’ early years on that set.

A Shocking Move By DAYS

When Hayes first learned that DAYS planned to burn down the iconic Horton House, she was shocked, but it wasn’t the first time this was planned.

“I knew that many years ago, another regime had planned on trashing the set and getting rid of the set because nobody cared about the Hortons anymore. It was stopped by one person, and I was eternally grateful for that,” Hayes told Michael Fairman TV.

“This time I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness! I guess I’ll be meeting people for a cup of coffee at the Horton Square. No home, no roots, no reason to be called in,’ and thinking that’s the end of Julie. That’s the end of Doug and Julie.

Then, when they began to structure a story around it, I think all of this came up during the writer’s strike. So of course, I was curious to see how this was going to turn out. I enjoyed the aftermath, because in the aftermath, and a little bit before the fire, if you saw the show, I get to talk a bit about the history of the household and the people in it.”

Hayes Has Bittersweet Memories

Playing the emotional scenes during and after the fire led Hayes to reflect on the days of Tom and Alice and working with Frances Reid and Macdonald Carey, the legendary performers who played the legendary characters.

“As Frances got older, she got a bit testy,” Hayes told Fairman. “When someone says, ‘You’re not going to read the line like that … are you?’ It catches your attention.”

“I got peeved at Frances from time to time, but her intent was always to make everything as good as it possibly could be. I saw her come back from her stroke. Learn to talk again, learn to do it all again. Not do it easily, but to do it at all was wonderful, and the same with Mac. In his last shows, he was very frail, but we’re actors. We liked being there.”

Now, Hayes gets to play Julie as the Salem matriarch rebuilding her grandparents’ home in a story bound to touch all of our hearts.

Stream new episodes of Days of our Lives weekdays on Peacock starting at 6 AM EST to see how these stories play out.