Five Things That Happened On November 30 In Soap History

In 1987, the late Richard Biggs made his Days of Our Lives debut as Marcus Hunter, who grew up in an orphanage with Steve Johnson, becoming his trusted friend. Biggs remained with the show until 1992, and in 2022, the show introduced two daughters for Marcus, Jada and Talia. The actor's co-star at DAYS, Mary Beth Evans (Kayla), recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2015, "He was just the sweetest guy in the whole world and just truly a tragic loss. I still think of him now so smiley and cute. It was so shocking to all of us when he passed away. I went to the funeral and it was surreal.”

In 1988, One Life To Live aired the double wedding of Asa Buchanan and Renee Divine (Phil Carey and Patricia Elliott, l.) and Cord Roberts and Tina Lord (John Loprieno and Andrea Evans). The wedding itself, which was held at a church packed with family and friends, had no hiccups, but the same could not be said for the reception. Deranged Ursula Blackwell was trying to murder Tina, and rigged the wedding cake to explode. But when the dessert went kaboom, it was Max's brother, Steve Holden, who was fatally injured.

In 1995, Rebecca Budig made her daytime debut as Guiding Light's Michelle Bauer, daughter of Ed Bauer (Peter Simon), which had last been played by Rachel Miner. She recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2016 of landing the role, "I screamed! I was so happy, are you kidding me? I was really excited to be doing a show in New York because my sister was living there and it was closer to home, Kentucky. I had been living in L.A. since I was 19." She quickly grew close to her on-screen dad, saying, "I can’t even put into words how much I enjoyed working with Peter. I love that man. He could make me laugh without even saying a word. He was so funny, had the best attitude and he took me to New York Rangers games. He was such a great dad in real life and would tell me about his daughter [Kate Hall, who would go on to become a soap opera writer]. I love my dad, but I wanted Peter Simon to be my dad [laughs]!”

In 1999, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and Carly Roberts (Sarah Brown) had sex — or more accurately, hate sex — for the first time on General Hospital. Carly was married to AJ Quartermaine at the time, unhappily so, and pined for Jason Morgan. She became upset when she spied Jason slow-dancing with Liz at Kelly's and made a beeline for penthouse, where she and Sonny got into an escalating argument. She accused him of wanting to sleep with her ("I've known what you wanted from the minute you laid eyes on me, and you hate it — you hate it that you want a woman because we're so inferior, we're so untrustworthy"). As fans of the show know, Carly and Sonny would ultimately fall in love and get married multiple times.

In 2015, Donnell Turner debuted as General Hospital's Curtis Ashford. In 2023, the actor recalled to Soap Opera Digest, "When I did my audition with General Hospital, I changed the lines just a little bit, added a little humor. And when I signed my contract, they told me, ‘Use your words, but tell our stories.’ So I felt, coming in, that I had a little bit of creative autonomy. They used to write [Curtis saying], ‘Hey, let’s skedaddle.’ I’d think, ‘Yeah, picture me saying “skedaddle!” ’ Curtis would say something like, ‘Let’s get up outta here,’ you know? And I think people resonated with that because it was more real. It’s that voice that makes Black people stop me in stores and say thank you, which feels great.”