Remembering Beloved DAYS Stars Who Have Passed

Macdonald Carey (ex-Tom), 1913-94 Born Edward Macdonald Carey in Sioux City, Iowa, Carey fell in love with acting in college at the University of Iowa and began working on radio soaps (as Dick on Stella Dallas and Ridgeway on John’s Other Wife) in the early 1940s. He made his Broadway debut in 1941 in Lady in the Dark, leading to a contract with Paramount Pictures. After starring in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Carey served in the Marine Corps, then returned to Hollywood. After a steady stream of movie and prime- time roles (his work in B-movies earned him the nickname “King of the Bs”), he became an original DAYS cast member in the role of kindly Dr. Tom Horton in 1965, and to this day, intones the show’s signature epigraph (“Like sands through the hourglass....”). Wed in the early 1940s to Elizabeth Heckscher, the couple divorced in 1969 and shared six children, Lynn, Lisa, Steven, Theresa, Edward Macdonald Jr. and Paul. Carey succumbed to lung cancer in 1994. Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie) noted to Digest in 2014 that he “learned to write poetry late in life and got really good at it. Late in life, his mind opened up even more. Many older people become negative and narrow. Not Mac. He was a doll.”

Frances Reid (ex-Alice), 1914-2010 Reid was born in Wichita Falls, TX, but raised in Berkeley, CA, and at the age of 24, she made her silver-screen debut with a small role in Man-Proof, which starred Myrna Loy and Rosalind Russell. In 1939, she made her Broadway debut in Where There’s a Will, and she was one of the original members of the prestigious Actors Studio, which was founded in 1947. Reid’s first soap role was playing Portia on the CBS television adaptation of the radio soap PORTIA FACES LIFE (1954-55); she then went on to play Grace Baker, mother to Mark Rydell’s Jeff, on AS THE WORLD TURNS (1959-62) and Rose Pollock, mother to Ann Flood’s Nancy, on EDGE OF NIGHT (1964). The following year, she began her most enduring role, the wise and warm matriarch of the Horton family, Alice, on DAYS, a character she portrayed from the show’s first episode until December 26, 2007. Reid, who was married to actor Philip Bourneuf from 1940 until 1979, when he passed away, received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Praised Deidre Hall (Marlena) to Digest in 2015, “She was an activist, she was a fire starter, she was a rabble-rouser with the sweetest smile and the sparkliest, twinkliest eyes. If you wanted something done, you went to Frances.”

Joseph Mascolo (ex-Stefano), 1929-2016 The son of Italian immigrants, Mascolo was raised in West Hartford, CT, and enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy after high school, then attended the University of Miami and began training as an actor with Stella Adler in New York City. He also studied classical music and opera. His career spanned theater, prime-time and film, but he was particularly prolific in the daytime realm. In 1961, he played Jack on the NBC sudser FROM THESE ROOTS; in 1969, he briefly appeared as a cop on THE DOCTORS, and from 1970-73, he played Ed on WHERE THE HEART IS. In 1982, Mascolo created his signature role, supervillain Stefano DiMera, on DAYS. In between stints in Salem, he notched gigs on SANTA BARBARA (as Carlo in 1985), GH (as Nicholas in 1989) and B&B (as Massimo from 2001-06). The actor shared one son, Peter, with wife Rose Maimone, to whom he was married from 1953 until her death in 1986. At the time of his own death, in 2016, he was married to Patricia Schultz. “He was so talented and such a generous actor and always so prepared,” Alison Sweeney (Sami) recalled to Digest in 2017, the year his final Stefano scenes aired. “There wasn’t a day when he didn’t give 100 percent to his performance and his character.”

Peggy McCay (ex-Caroline), 1927-2018 Margaret Ann McCay, a native of New York City, graduated from Barnard College in 1949, moved to Texas to work in theater, then returned to Manhattan to study with legendary acting instructor Lee Strasberg. She won a prestigious OBIE Award in 1956 for her role as Sofia in the Off-Broadway production of Uncle Vanya, and the following year, she starred in a film version of the play. McCay’s first major television role was as heroine Vanessa Dale on the soap LOVE OF LIFE, which she played from 1951-55. After moving to Los Angeles, McCay was cast in a wide variety of prime-time projects, then appeared on GH as Iris Fairchild, a nurse who had an affair with Lee Baldwin, from 1967-70. Her most memorable daytime role was as the Brady matriarch, Caroline, beginning her DAYS run in 1983. She remained with the show until 2016. “Peggy beamed when she performed,” Salem granddaughter Christie Clark (ex-Carrie) told Digest in 2019. “I never had to prepare for a crying scene with Peggy, she just took you along for the ride and pulled out emotions from everyone she worked with.”