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One of daytime’s most beloved and iconic stars, Days of Our Lives‘s Drake Hogestyn (John Black), handed away on September 28, 2024, in the future shy of his 71st birthday.
In a press release shared through DAYS, the Hogestyn household wrote:
“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Drake Hogestyn. He was thrown the curve ball of his life when he was identified with pancreatic most cancers, however he confronted the problem with unbelievable energy and willpower. After placing up an unbelievable battle, he handed peacefully surrounded by family members.
He was essentially the most superb husband, father, papa, and actor. He cherished performing for the Days viewers and sharing the stage with the best forged, crew, and manufacturing staff within the enterprise.
We love him and we'll miss him all of the Days of our Lives.”
Executive Producer Ken Corday added, “This is a very difficult one for all of us. Hogey was the ultimate team player and there are not sufficient words to express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on our show, personally and professionally, was profound and will forever remain unmatched.”
A Legendary Life
Born Donald Drake Hogestyn in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 27, 1953, the longer term cleaning soap famous person left his house state after graduating from highschool to attend the University of South Florida on a baseball scholarship. There, he majored in pre-dentistry, graduating with a double main in microbiology and utilized sciences, with the intention of turning into an oral surgeon. But after he completed school, he was drafted by two Major League Baseball groups, the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. He opted to signal with the Yankees, and performed third base on one of the group’s farm groups in Oneonta, NY.
After an harm in 1977 ended his promising baseball profession, Hogestyn started his pivot into showbiz, getting into a nationwide expertise search carried out by Columbia Pictures with 75,00o entrants. He was one of 30 actors chosen to take part in an appearing coaching program sponsored by the studio and headed to Los Angeles. He made his tv debut within the 1982 sequence Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which ran for one season on CBS. Hogestyn performed the function of Ben McFadden, the second oldest of the seven McFadden sons; Richard Dean Anderson, contemporary from his breakout function as Jeff Webber on General Hospital, performed Hogestyn’s older brother, Adam McFadden.
After that present wrapped, Hogestyn notched a couple of extra roles in prime-time, equivalent to Kort on CBS’s short-lived sci-fi sequence Otherworld in 1985. In 1984, he auditioned for the function of Kyle Sampson on Guiding Light, which went to Larkin Malloy. The following yr, he was invited to audition for DAYS, however when he first confirmed up for the try-out, Hogestyn hardly had his coronary heart set on the job — in no small half as a result of his coronary heart was again in Indiana, within the kind of his future spouse, Victoria. He recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2015, “I had begun courting Victoria and I was flying back to Fort Wayne and DAYS was my last audition, as far as I was concerned. I pulled my Jeep up and I thought, ‘This is perfect. This is exactly where I started, at Columbia Pictures in the talent program. This is the first gate I walked through and it will be the last I go through. Let’s get it over with.’ ”
Fortunately, he continued, “[I] stopped myself and said, ‘What kind of attitude is that? Let’s get this over with?’ Got back in my Jeep, drove it around the block, pulled back into the parking lot and said, ‘Give ’em hell.’ And I walked in and when [Casting Director] Doris Sabbagh started describing the character, I pulled [the book] The Bourne Identity out of my briefcase and said, ‘Doris, are you talking about Jason Bourne?’ And she said, ‘Yes, but we’re calling him John Black! It’s only going to last a couple of months, through sweeps period, and then you’ll be free to do what you want to do.’ ”
Hogestyn made his Salem debut on January 24, 1986, and in a 2015 interview with Digest, he admitted that as a newcomer on the DAYS set, he felt “overwhelmed. When I started on the first day, I sat there all day long. I stayed on the set in everybody’s scenes all week long, just to see how they did it. I remember watching Mac [Carey, who played Tom Horton] and Frances [Reid, who played Alice Horton] and Quinn Redeker [who played Alex Marshall] and John Clarke [who played Mickey Horton]. [And] Deidre [Hall, who plays Marlena Evans], of course, took me by the hand and said, ‘This is how you do this, this is how you do that.’ ”
It was in no small because of Hogestyn’s chemistry with Hall that the present deserted its plans to make John Black a short-term function. (*70*) as “The Pawn” (click on right here for a refresher on that landmark storyline), John was revealed to be Marlena’s thought-to-be-dead husband, Roman Brady, who had been performed by Wayne Northrop from 1981-84.
As a visitor on Digest‘s podcast, Dishing with Digest, in 2022, his DAYS leading lady Deidre Hall (Marlena) recalled the beginnings of her long working relationship with Hogestyn. She said, “Drake came in to audition/screen test, I guess. I had agreed to test with everybody. I ran with everybody the same amount of time, practiced with everybody the same amount of time, and did the scene with Drake. Later, everybody was saying, ‘I don’t know, what do you suppose?’ ‘I don’t know, what do you suppose?”’ And they stated, ‘What do you think?’ And I stated, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any contest.’ ‘Who do you think it is?’ I stated, ‘I think it’s Drake. I imply, he’s acquired all the things you want. I believe it’s a great look. I believe we glance nicely collectively. I believe he’s acquired an depth. He’s acquired a energy and a masculinity however a sexiness. Of everyone that you simply introduced in, I believe he’s your best option.’ And that they had been in the identical place however variety of waited for me to say it, I suppose. And so he was employed. I suppose none of us stopped to suppose, ‘He’s probably not what you'll name a very skilled actor.’ I imply, he’d been a sports activities man, a baseball participant.” From the beginning, she smiled, “He was dreamy. He loved to rehearse, wanted to get it right, very serious about the work…. I think it worked from the very first moment.”
Julie Nathanson
Hall with main girl Deidre Hall early in his DAYS profession.
Hogestyn, of course, agreed to an extended keep — and whereas his skilled life was on the upswing, that success paled compared to the pleased tidings in his private life: He and Victoria wed and commenced elevating their household — daughters Whitney, Alexandra and Rachael and son Ben (who, for a time, appeared on General Hospital as Lucas Jones) — in California. In 2018, he shared his ideas on learn how to have an enduring marriage with Digest, noting, “Stay married! You just stay married. And then you just fall in love with that same person over and over and over again…. I fell in love with Victoria when I was 15, she was 12, on the baseball field. She’s on the handlebars of her girlfriend Lisa Miller’s bike, I’m playing center field, go figure. That moment she just shocked me and I just screamed, ‘No! I have too much to do with my life,’ and from then on that was it! I look at her, I see her, I can see her when she was 12, when she was 13, when she was 14, 15, 16 … all the moments.”
When Hall left DAYS in 1987, Roman moved on to different romantic pairings, most importantly reverse Genie Francis (Laura, General Hospital), who performed Diana Colville, and Staci Greason, who performed Isabella Toscano. In 2015, Francis informed Digest, “Drake was adorable and funny,” and in 2022, Greason informed Digest, “Drake really took me under his wing.” Then, in 1991, DAYS seized the chance to carry not solely Hall, however the authentic Roman, Wayne Northrop, again to the present, which is how Hogestyn went again to taking part in John Black. The actor recalled to Digest in 2015, “I felt in a sense of fair play, I hadn’t created that character [of Roman]. Wayne did and had great success with it…. It was a good opportunity to re-explore John Black.” In 2018, he informed Digest, “I hold those years [of playing Roman] very close to my heart, and I’m very proud and protective of my interpretation of Roman Brady.”
Hogestyn performed John via 2009, when each he and Hall had been dropped from the forged because of finances cuts. They had been rehired in 2011. “I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking that DAYS was ever going to make the phone call to come back,” Hogestyn informed Digest that yr, including, “Did I hope it would happen? Absolutely…. I was welcomed back with open arms. It brought a tear to my eyes.”
In May 2016, Hogestyn skilled mind accidents that saved him off the present for a number of months. Opening as much as Digest upon his return to work in 2017, the actor stated,
“I don’t know if I’m being reflective or not, but you know, this whole thing with losing Joe Mascolo [ex-Stefano, who passed away in 2016] … I really loved that guy. I thought that he was going to live forever. I really did. I mean, his mom and dad lived up to their hundreds. So, as we go through weddings and funerals on the show, we do it in our own lives, too, and it’s kind of crazy.”
He went on to say, “I feel life is good…. Time’s going by. That’s just it. It’s amazing. It’s remarkable. We live a dual life here, you know what I mean? We not only have our real life, but we come here and have another life, and it’s really, really unusual. I wish everybody could experience this. It’s really rich and it’s really full and I’m very blessed. It’s a great way to go through life. I was texting with a [mentor] of mine [and] he said, ‘Hollywood really is a meat grinder,’ and I said, ‘Yeah. You have to know when you’re on top of the roller-coaster ride and be prepared for what’s coming next.’ Because that roller coaster goes up and goes down, and you have to have a very, very strong support group and sense of self and be very realistic. He was saying, ‘It’s amazing that you’ve had a gig half your life working in the entertainment industry on a show, and being passionate about what you love to do. How fortunate are you?’ And I said, ‘Yes. Exactly.’ ”
Hogestyn is survived by his spouse, Victoria, their 4 kids Rachael, Ben, Whitney, Alexandra and their companions, and 7 grandchildren.
Soap Opera Digest extends our deepest condolences to Hogestyn’s family members. He shall be drastically missed.
