DAYS Exclusive: Susan Seaforth Hayes On Her Real-Life Grief And Julie’s Widowhood
As Julie continues to mourn Doug and adjust to widowhood on Days of Our Lives, Susan Seaforth Hayes has been tasked with playing a lengthy stretch of story about grief. The actress, who lost her beloved husband and Salem leading man, Bill Hayes (ex-Doug), in January 2024, concedes that playing a fictional version of her real-life experience has presented certain challenges. “It’s taken a bit of concentration reliving the day he passed, reliving the real funeral, reliving all of those empty moments and making them real for the audience, [while] not wanting to come into work,” says Seaforth Hayes.
A Special Love
However, the actress believes Julie’s story of life after loss is an important one to bring to the screen. “I feel we have a large audience of women and, in the fullness of time, most wives outlive their husbands,” she notes. “I felt this was a story that perhaps we hadn’t examined in quite the same way with the other characters who have lost husbands.”
Seaforth Hayes observes that the parallels between Julie’s loss and her own gives the storyline extra emotional heft. “The audience, if they have any memory at all or if they’ve been around for a while, watched [Julie and Doug] fall in love, maintain a relationship, lose each other, and find each other,” she points out. “And they know that Susan and Bill really loved each other. So there’s a certain depth and I appreciated that. With the exception of the grandson [Doug III], Julie was not taken in by a fortune hunter or dissolved into a wheelchair herself. She continued to try to face reality, feel the pain, and not inflict it on others or expect special treatment because of it.”
As an actress, Seaforth Hayes notes that she felt greatly supported by her DAYS colleagues. “I received beautiful treatment from my co-workers, crew, cast, writers… Everyone has been outstandingly considerate, supportive and absolutely lovely,” she declares. “And my interest in being on the show has increased tenfold since it has become much more of my life than it ever was when I was happily married.” She deeply values the kindness her co-workers have shown her, she says, because “Women need support at this time. Anyone who has lost the center of their universe needs a bit of extra support. And from [DAYS’s Executive Producer] Ken Corday down to camera number one, camera number two, and camera number three, I’ve received that kind of support. It’s been very precious, unexpected and gratefully received.”
The fact that DAYS has taken its time exploring Julie’s grief and her struggle to adapt to a world without the man she adored for decades, has deeply resonated with Seaforth Hayes, who began her own widowhood journey alongside several other women in her life. “I have friends, close friends — one a sister-in-law whose husband, my brother, died within a few weeks of Billy, and a girlfriend who’s a star of the Metropolitan Opera who lost her husband a week within the death of Billy,” shares Seaforth Hayes. “I’ve been in contact with them, and we’ve really learned and lifted each other up. It’s that club of people who loved their husbands.”
But even though her husband lived to the incredible age of 98, she still felt unprepared for his death, given how well he had been doing both physically and mentally. “I felt no relief,” she explains. “I felt only loss. I can understand [feeling some measure of relief] when there has been dementia, when there has been painful illness. That was not the case in all of these marriages, and it’s just loss. He was here, [now] he’s not here. Not, ‘Thank goodness, he’s out of pain.’ It hasn’t been that way.”
The compassion and condolences that Seaforth Hayes has received from DAYS fans has given her great comfort. “Everybody that recognizes me gives me sympathy,” the actress nods. “I received a whole bunch of mail on Valentine’s Day that had been sent the week of Bill’s demise. It was a slow process getting through NBC and Peacock and regime change at the offices, but suddenly the mail was delivered and I saw these outpourings of honest emotion and affection and respect for Bill. I know I’ve got to move on and be my own person, but it’s strengthening to know that the man that I gave my life to gave so much to others.”
As has always been her practice, Seaforth Hayes tries to respond to as much of the mail as she can. “I got a letter from one lady, who had named her daughter Julie, and she was very pleased with the way the story was being handled,” says Seaforth Hayes. “It meant a lot to her that [Bill and I] had been in love for so long and ‘so true to each other,’ is the way she put it. She’s a teacher, and I wrote her back immediately that, ‘You read me. I thought I was going to be a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher. I appreciate that you honored the show and the character by naming your beautiful daughter [after my character].’ It just hit me at a moment that I was very open, and it was wonderful. I try to respond to letters that mean a lot. I always have, and because of that, I actually have some people still in my life that write me fan letters.”
Seaforth Hayes has made several enduring connections with fans that began with a simple letter. “There are two ladies that live in Los Angeles that wrote me 25, 30 years ago and never said anything about themselves,” Seaforth Hayes recalls. “One of them turned out to be a performer, a singer, an actress, a stage manager. Very good, really sharp. And her partner, who gave me voice lessons and now lives about a quarter mile away from me, became close friends with my mom. They came and played and sang [at my mother’s house] the Christmas before she died. And that’s from answering a fan letter.”
She even shares the bond of recent widowhood with one of the show’s viewers that she first connected with by mail. “She came out to visit me [from Kentucky] when she found out who my doctor was and she needed some surgery,” explains Seaforth Hayes. “She went to my doctor, because she trusted me, and we’re still in contact 25 years later. She made it possible for Billy and me to do Love Letters in her city. Now she’s alone, and the weather’s been terrible in Kentucky. So I called her because I was concerned about her, and she sent me a frozen cherry pie. She went to visit Billy’s grave in Michigan when she knew I was sending his ashes there. She said, ‘Do you want me to go with you, Susan? Are you going?’ I said, ‘I can’t bear to go. My grandson’s going to do it.’ And she went and visited the grave. My God! Some of the best people in the world are watching our show.”
Mourning Glory: Julie (Susan Seaforth Hayes) was heartbroken after Doug (Bill Hayes) passed away.
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