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"JAKE" JOINS THE MOB

Days of Our Lives fans have been hearing lots about crazy Ava's mobster daddy. We'll finally meet him May 2 - and he'll look just like Joe Penny! The Jake and the Fatman star will play underworld don Martino Vitali, who comes to Salem to help his drug-addled daughter (played by the sublime Tamara Braun) after she's arrested for kidnapping and attempted murder. While in town, he'll also reconnect with Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow). She used to be a high-class call girl; he was a devoted client.

This isn't Penny's first encounter with the mob (as The Sopranos' Vic Musto, he nearly had an affair with Carmela), but it's his first time in the suds. "I don't blow smoke - I'm too far down the road for that - but I gotta say how much I respect the Days cast," says the 51-year-old Penny. "This soap work is grueling, man! I feel like I'm playing really rough football. I've had my jock knocked loose a few times. My helmet's flipped sideways. But I'm having a great time."

Penny is just the latest of several '80s prime-time greats now working in daytime. Among them: Kevin Dobson (Days), Alley Mills and Patrick Duffy (The Bold and the Beautiful), Bruce Weitz (General Hospital) and Ted Shackelford (The Young and the Restless). "After all these years my mother thinks I've finally arrived," Penny says. "She's peeing her pants that I'm on Days and keeps calling me to find out all the gossip. I may have to change my number."