All The Days Of My Life (so Far)

by Alison Sweeney

  Over the years, there were enough affairs on Days to keep most marriage counselors and divorce lawyers busy for a lifetime. There also were characters who fell in love with siblings, and mothers who dated their daughters’ lovers. There were murders and manslaughters, pregnancies and malignancies, blackmail and black sheep. There were characters obsessed with greed and possessed by the devil. Some were poisoned, others merely buried alive. Yep, Salem is not a safe place to live!

  Sami Finds a Home

  Once Sami surfaced in that dark overcoat in 1993—supposedly after a very long visit with her grandparents in Colorado—there’s one thing for sure: It has always been a challenge bringing her to life amid everything else that transpires in Salem. But it’s a challenge that I’ve enjoyed and certainly tried not to let overwhelm me.

  Particularly in my first few days on the set in 1993, I remember feeling absolutely astounded at times, thinking, “My God, I’m on Days of Our Lives! I don’t believe it!” It really was a dream come true, particularly for a sixteen-year-old who loved the show long before I auditioned for it. At the same time, there was no time to be a kid. I realized that this was serious stuff. I needed to be professional, arrive on time, know my lines, and deliver them convincingly. I needed to hold my own with the amazing cast of the show. I had a pretty good work ethic before joining Days, but by necessity it became a way of life in no time. I was never one of those actors who was full of herself and had attitude (Thanks to my mom!), but if I had been, I realized that no one at Days would have ever put up with it.

  In those first few weeks and months, when a scene was particularly challenging or difficult, I did sometimes ask myself, “How am I going to do this? How am I going to make it work?” Fortunately, as I’ve already mentioned, there were other actors on the set who I could turn to when I needed a bit of advice. Whether the script called for something subtle or something over the top, I knew that people like Deidre Hall (Marlena), Wayne Northrop (ex-Roman), and Drake Hogestyn (John) were among those who would always offer guidance if I asked for it. Making a TV show is incredibly demanding on everyone, and as actors we rely on each other to help elevate our performances to the level that the scene requires.

  Another factor has been at play almost since day one, and this probably won’t surprise you: Particularly after Sami’s transformation from being sweet and innocent to wicked and nasty, I’ve made an effort not to let her craziness affect me once the camera is shut off and the lights are dimmed. Fans often ask whether Sami’s evil ways seep into my soul and actually surface in my real life from time to time. Luckily (particularly for my family and friends!), I’ve always been able to separate fantasy and reality. I’ve sometimes told reporters that Sami allows me to get any unkind thoughts out of my system. But, really, it’s not something that I’ve ever worried about. I don’t get very melodramatic on my own time, and as I hope my husband Dave would tell you, I’m usually pretty relaxed and even-tempered. You could say that I leave Sami on the set and never let her pull the strings in my personal life.

  The Bulimia Story

  I’ve already told you how Sami was introduced to America. But the first major and meaningful story line that involved my character focused on the subject of bulimia. Apparently, the writers of Days already had the idea of dealing with bulimia on the show before I was even cast for the part—and what a timely subject! Bulimia—the bingeing-and-purging syndrome that creates such chaos in the lives of so many girls and young women—is almost an epidemic in America.

  Of course, as I’ll write about in great detail later in the book, I’ve gone through periods in my life where I’ve been absolutely obsessed with and fixated on my weight. When the number on the scale wasn’t where I thought it should be (when was it ever where I thought it should be?), I would absolutely freak out. It was pretty sad, but at times my happiness (or lack of it) revolved solely around my weight. It became a dominating issue in my life.

  To be honest, in my more despondent moments of struggling with the scale, I thought seriously about vomiting as a way to win the battle of the bulge. More than once, I remember sitting in the bathroom at home and trying to make myself throw up. Not a pretty image, is it? But my body wouldn’t let me vomit. I’d stick my fingers down my throat, but nothing would happen. I don’t know—probably a mental block of some kind, my brain’s self-defense mechanism, but whatever the reason, it just didn’t work. Thank goodness!

  But over the years, I’ve known a number of girls who turned bulimia into a way of life. Some vomited after meals. Others took laxatives. I suppose they thought it worked for them, at least for a while. But I also know it must have taken a terrible toll on their health. Some bulimic girls become so ill that they can’t keep any food in their stomach, even when they want to. As soon as their body senses food, they become nauseous, and vomiting becomes almost automatic. It’s shocking, but that’s what this culture does to so many girls who are absolutely desperate to have the “perfect body.”

  The producers of Days were really quite remarkable in the way they handled my part in the bulimia story line. On the show, the teenage Sami began bingeing and purging because of the difficulties she was going through in her life. At the time, I don’t know whether the producers were aware of my own struggles with weight, but they certainly made sure that I was comfortable portraying a bulimic. At the time, newspapers and magazines were filled with articles about Tracy Gold, the actress on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains, who had gone public in 1992 about her personal struggle with self-induced starvation (anorexia nervosa) beginning at age twelve. So at Days and probably a lot of other shows, everyone was more sensitive than usual about the dieting obsessions and the devastating eating disorders that can occur with young actresses. They wanted to make sure that in playing a bulimic, I didn’t become so immersed in my character that I lapsed into an eating disorder in real life. True story.

  The producers of Days talked with me and my parents about the bulimic story line to be certain that we were okay with it. As it turned out, my character struggled with bulimia for most of my first summer on the show. At the time, Sami was coping with some absolutely mind-boggling stresses in her life. She dearly loved her mother and father (played by Deidre and Wayne). But things changed instantly when she saw her mom, Marlena, cheating on her father by having sex with John Black in the conference room at a publishing party. Sami absolutely melted down. She just couldn’t handle it.

  Then, to complicate matters (as if that were necessary!), Marlena learned she was pregnant. But things got even worse: She wasn’t sure who the father was! Was it John (her lover)? Or Roman (her husband)?

  Are you following this? Welcome to the crazy world of Salem!

  Until that time, Sami was innocent and naïve, and believed that her parents were perfect. Of course, every kid eventually comes to the realization that her mom and dad, like all human beings, have flaws. But for the moment, Sami absolutely lost it. She became worried sick about her adored father and how he would react to the news that he might not be the father of Marlena’s baby. What angst for such an insecure teenager!

  As the saga played out, Sami tried to protect her father by doctoring the baby’s blood-test results in the hospital computer. As a result, a very relieved Marlena believed that Roman, in fact, had fathered the baby.

  Through it all, Sami continued to find herself right in the middle of this mess. And what was her way of surviving this emotional train wreck? She never told anyone that she had seen her mother and John having sex. To soothe her own pain and sorrow, she gorged on food and then vomited what she had eaten, day after day, week after week.

  In Sami’s mind, her family had driven her to find solace in an eating disorder, and Sami’s pain was portrayed very powerfully on the show. And judging by the fan letters I received, this storyline really hit home with the viewers.

  To understand this problem better, I talked with several psychotherapists at a treatment facility for eating disorders in L.A., and consulted with
some private therapists as well. Looking back, I believe that we depicted bulimia in a very sensitive and accurate way, and it was definitely challenging to play.

  During and immediately after the airing of the bulimia episodes, I got plenty of mail from girls who were living with anorexia and bulimia. Many of those letters were absolutely amazing. Girls poured out their hearts with very personal and moving accounts of struggling for years with eating disorders. I’m sure they cried plenty of tears when they wrote them. I shed some just reading them. They were pretty intense. In letter after letter, young women described becoming ensnared in the grip of an eating disorder, and how they had lost control of their lives. Of course, I didn’t feel qualified to advise these viewers, but I was able to refer them to reputable resources for more information and for treatment, and was as understanding and sympathetic as possible in my letters to them.

  Over the years, thanks to Sami and the writers of Days, I have felt extremely lucky to have been involved in episodes like these that have confronted very important issues in the lives of our viewers, and really touched people’s lives. One of the most moving fan letters I’ve ever received was from a teenage viewer who described how she had followed my suggestion and gotten help. She wrote that she knew she might have to struggle with her eating disorder for the rest of her life. But her self-esteem was improving, and she felt she was finally on the right track and making progress on the road to recovery. Those kinds of letters make me realize that we’re doing something important on Days, and I’m so proud to be part of it.

  The Marlena-John-Roman-Sami story line continued for quite a while. Marlena’s new baby, Belle (who, of course, was also Sami’s sister), became ill, and when she needed to have blood drawn, Sami became petrified that through the baby’s blood typing, her parents would discover that Belle was really John’s daughter, not Roman’s. So what was Sami’s solution? Naturally, she pushed the envelope as far as it would stretch. She decided to kidnap the baby and sell her on the black market. That was Sami’s way of keeping her parents’ lives from being “ruined.”

  Leave it to Sami and her convoluted thinking to come up with a strategy this bizarre! It set the stage for the kind of behavior that my character would exhibit in the years ahead. The kidnapping was the first time that Sami crossed the line and committed a serious crime (if you don’t count switching Belle’s paternity test results because, after all, her heart was in the right place)—but, of course, it wasn’t a major transgression to her. In Sami’s mind, the kidnapping was something noble, trying to protect her father and preserve her parents’ marriage. To her, the abduction of her baby sister was a way of rescuing everyone around her.

  If you don’t remember how the story line ultimately evolved (and for all you fans who have started watching since then), let me indulge you in a brief refresher course: Sami freaked out when a buyer for the baby seemed kind of sketchy, so she decided to move to Florida with Belle. Though she was only sixteen years old, Sami decided that the best course of action was to raise the infant herself. But before that scenario could ever play out, the truth finally emerged, indicating that Belle was really John’s daughter. And, of course, these facts surfaced in the most shocking way possible. Just consider this: Marlena had learned the truth about the baby’s real father, and shortly thereafter, she was surrounded by family members at Belle’s baptism ceremony—and the secret came out right then and there! Stefano had threatened to blackmail her, and she felt she had no choice but to announce to the entire gathering that she had had an affair with someone else. It was unbelievable. Roman was absolutely devastated. Before long, he figured out that John was Belle’s real father, and that all of Sami’s emotional and eating problems were related to this long and bizarre turn of events. Roman left Salem, and he and Marlena divorced.

  Are you following along? You practically need a road map and name tags to keep everything and everyone straight, don’t you? Don’t even think of trying to do a Salem Family Tree.

  A Little Advice

  A final interesting note: I know that viewers really relate to Sami, and they never run short of advice for her. As this kidnapping saga unfolded on TV screens across the country, mail poured in from viewers who were horrified by Sami’s behavior. In Los Angeles, several people stopped me on the street and said things like, “Give the baby back! What are you doing? Return the baby.”

  They were so angry at Sami!

  Some of my favorite letters were from fans who took the time to recount and explain the entire story line to me. One of them wrote, “Dear Alison: You need to give Belle back to Marlena immediately because the baby is very sick, and you’re only sixteen years old and can’t take proper care of her. Please, Alison, do it for Belle.”

  I respond to all my fan mail, and there’s a part of me that feels like answering letters like the one above by saying, “It’s only a television show!!” But I think better of it, and I’m just so grateful that viewers are so loyal and so involved that they sometimes don’t seem to differentiate TV from real life!

  Here’s what I think about Sami and her relationship with her fans: Even if many viewers don’t want to admit it, Sami does the kinds of things that they always wanted to do to their boyfriends or family members but just couldn’t, because in real life people can’t behave that way. That’s what I love about Sami. She puts herself out there and does these unbelievably insane things. Yet as crazy as it seems, her behavior comes from a real place. It’s a product of her insecurities and her love for her family. So even when she’s not very likeable, fans keep coming back for more.

  Good for them—and for me!

  Chapter 6

  If you can say anything about the fans of Days of Our Lives, it’s that they’re loyal. Many arrange and rearrange their schedules just to make sure they’re near a TV when the show airs. Others set their VCRs before they leave for work or school in the morning. If they miss the show they can now surf the Internet for detailed descriptions of the day’s events—the show’s agonies and the ecstasies, the affairs and the afflictions, the tenderness and the torment, the passion and the persecution.

  Just a typical day in Salem.

  Remember the statistics that I cited in Chapter 1: In an average week, about six million Americans watch Days of Our Lives. That makes it one of the most popular soaps on television. Among college-age women, Days has ranked only behind ER and Friends as the most videotaped program in the United States. How cool is that?

  Of course, producing an hour-long show five days a week is an immense undertaking. That works out to 265 episodes a year! There are no lengthy breaks. No summer hiatus. Barely a moment to catch your breath. Compare that to most prime-time shows, which produce about 22 episodes per season. One-hour primetime dramas spend seven to ten days on each episode. Sitcoms take five days to do a half-hour show. But in daytime, we can’t air reruns, so we are under constant pressure to produce one new hour of television every day! But it all gets done, and we’re so proud of the finished product—and the credit should go not only to our dedicated group of wonderful actors, but also to the many talented, behind-the-scenes men and women: the producers, the directors, the writers, the crew, the makeup artists, the hair stylists…the list goes on and on. All of us work very hard. All of us want nothing more than to produce a finished product that fans love and that keeps them coming back for more.

  That’s the bottom line.

  A Day in the Life

  When fans tell me that they love watching Days, they also often ask how the show is actually put together. With five hours of new programs per week, some wonder if we just about live and sleep on the set. “When do you ever go home?” they ask. “When do you have time to think about anything else?”

  Good questions.

  Let me tell you, I’m very grateful for the professionalism of both our cast and crew. The set is as energetic and as animated as Grand Central Station, with a nonstop rush of adrenaline that lasts from sunup to exhaustion (I’ve heard it referred
to as “barely controlled chaos”!). People are racing in all directions…the production staff, directors, writers, set designers, cameramen, stagehands, electricians, prop crew, wardrobe personnel, makeup artists, hair stylists, audio technicians, even the security guards. All of us know our respective roles in the process. All of us approach our responsibilities seriously and thoughtfully. When unforeseen problems arise, they’re resolved quickly because we have no other choice. The show has to stay on schedule. Falling behind just isn’t an option.

  There’s really no typical day on the set of Days. In Chapter 2, I briefly sketched out what the daily schedule was like when I started on the show in 1993. These days, I usually have early calls that require me to arrive at the expansive NBC lot in Burbank between 6:45 and 7:30 in the morning (the alarm clock jars me awake all too early on those days—it hurts just writing about it!). By the time the cameras roll, the cast looks beautiful (or handsome, depending), but at 6:45, some are a little disheveled, others shuffling quietly to their dressing rooms, eyes still half-shut, brains just getting in gear (that’s me!). There’s rarely the opportunity to “sleep in” on workdays, although occasionally I’m not called to the set until 1 P.M. or so (hooray!).

  No matter what the arrival time, the actors may gulp down a cup or two of Starbucks coffee to help us greet the day. Then we have our hair and makeup done and begin working with the director to “dry block” our scenes, which (as I’ve written) means becoming familiar with the marks already laid down, indicating where we’ll be standing, and when and where we’ll be moving. (A one-hour script will have hundreds of camera shots, so there’s a lot for the directors and the actors to remember; many of us make notes on the script and review them before the actual filming starts.) If an actor has questions about a scene, the director (or sometimes the stage manager) will help you sort them out. Then it’s off to wardrobe, getting yourself dressed—and then making yourself comfortable (studying lines) in your dressing room until it’s time to shoot your scenes.