‘Days of Our Lives’: Drake Hogestyn Signed Off on Character’s Death Before His Passing

Before Days of Our Lives star Drake Hogestyn passed away in September, he actually approved his character’s own death. Hogestyn initially portrayed the beloved character from 1985  to 2009 but returned in 2011. Appearing in over 4,200 episodes, the late actor’s final appearance was on the Sept. 9 episode, just weeks before his death on Sept. 28 from pancreatic cancer.

“We were rolling the dice because it’s difficult to tell a story of someone’s death or a character’s death while the actor is still alive; albeit [Drake] was fighting, like a tiger, a very difficult disease,” executive producer Ken Corday explained to Soap Opera Digest. “And I made the choice to, ‘Okay, let’s tell the story.’ He hadn’t been on [the show] in nine months. We needed a reason [for John’s absence].”

Knowing that he wanted to properly write off Hogestyn, who was only getting worse, Corday reached out to him. “He and I were in contact,” he said. “I wanted to make sure Drake signed off on this, and he was totally in favor of it. He trusted me. Had Drake, God willing, beaten this, he would’ve come back, and it would’ve been something different. But [the story] had to be told. It was extremely difficult and painful for us to tell it — for the cast, for everybody. Drake was a big part of the show. The consummate actor. Always a team player and pretty good-looking, too.”

John’s funeral will be featured in an upcoming episode, and as hard as it’s going to be for the fans, it was even harder to film for the cast, who were, in a way, also saying goodbye to Hogestyn. Longtime cast member Stephen Nichols, who plays Steve, shared that filming the funeral was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I didn’t, at first, agree with what was going on, because [Drake] was still living.” Additionally, it made the moment better knowing the late actor “gave his blessing to the storyline beforehand to Ken. So if it was okay with him, then I felt that I had to do my part.”

Meanwhile, Drake Hogestyn’s leading lady, Deidra Hall, who portrays Marlena, said the episode is “beautifully done. You’re going to see a whole career of flashbacks that will take you back to [John and Marlena’s] first handshake at Shenanigans, when he first rescued her, the pier scene… It will go through all the years. There’s a lot of history and a lot of heart.”