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Days of Our Lives Superstar Drake Hogestyn (John) Dies At 70

One of daytime’s most beloved and iconic stars, Days of Our Lives‘s Drake Hogestyn (John Black), passed away on September 28, 2024, one day shy of his 71st birthday.

In a statement shared via DAYS, the Hogestyn family wrote:

“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Drake Hogestyn. He was thrown the curve ball of his life when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but he faced the challenge with incredible strength and determination. After putting up an unbelievable fight, he passed peacefully surrounded by loved ones.

He was the most amazing husband, father, papa, and actor. He loved performing for the Days audience and sharing the stage with the greatest cast, crew, and production team in the business.

We love him and we will miss him all the Days of our Lives.”

Executive Producer Ken Corday added, “This is a very difficult one for all of us. Hogey was the ultimate team player and there are not sufficient words to express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on our show, personally and professionally, was profound and will forever remain unmatched.”
A Legendary Life
Born Donald Drake Hogestyn in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 27, 1953, the future soap superstar left his home state after graduating from high school to attend the University of South Florida on a baseball scholarship. There, he majored in pre-dentistry, graduating with a double major in microbiology and applied sciences, with the intention of becoming an oral surgeon. But after he finished college, he was drafted by two Major League Baseball teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. He opted to sign with the Yankees, and played third base on one of the organization’s farm teams in Oneonta, NY.

After an injury in 1977 ended his promising baseball career, Hogestyn began his pivot into showbiz, entering a nationwide talent search conducted by Columbia Pictures with 75,00o entrants. He was one of 30 actors chosen to participate in an acting training program sponsored by the studio and headed to Los Angeles. He made his television debut in the 1982 series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which ran for one season on CBS. Hogestyn played the role of Ben McFadden, the second oldest of the seven McFadden sons; Richard Dean Anderson, fresh from his breakout role as Jeff Webber on General Hospital, played Hogestyn’s older brother, Adam McFadden.

After that show wrapped, Hogestyn notched a few more roles in prime-time, such as Kort on CBS’s short-lived sci-fi series Otherworld in 1985. In 1984, he auditioned for the role of Kyle Sampson on Guiding Light, which went to Larkin Malloy. The following year, he was invited to audition for DAYS, but when he first showed up for the try-out, Hogestyn hardly had his heart set on the job — in no small part because his heart was back in Indiana, in the form of his future wife, Victoria. He recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2015, “I had begun courting Victoria and I was flying back to Fort Wayne and DAYS was my last audition, as far as I was concerned. I pulled my Jeep up and I thought, ‘This is perfect. This is exactly where I started, at Columbia Pictures in the talent program. This is the first gate I walked through and it will be the last I go through. Let’s get it over with.’ ”

Fortunately, he continued, “[I] stopped myself and said, ‘What kind of attitude is that? Let’s get this over with?’ Got back in my Jeep, drove it around the block, pulled back into the parking lot and said, ‘Give ’em hell.’ And I walked in and when [Casting Director] Doris Sabbagh started describing the character, I pulled [the book] The Bourne Identity out of my briefcase and said, ‘Doris, are you talking about Jason Bourne?’ And she said, ‘Yes, but we’re calling him John Black! It’s only going to last a couple of months, through sweeps period, and then you’ll be free to do what you want to do.’ ”

Hogestyn made his Salem debut on January 24, 1986, and in a 2015 interview with Digest, he admitted that as a newcomer on the DAYS set, he felt “overwhelmed. When I started on the first day, I sat there all day long. I stayed on the set in everybody’s scenes all week long, just to see how they did it. I remember watching Mac [Carey, who played Tom Horton] and Frances [Reid, who played Alice Horton] and Quinn Redeker [who played Alex Marshall] and John Clarke [who played Mickey Horton]. [And] Deidre [Hall, who plays Marlena Evans], of course, took me by the hand and said, ‘This is how you do this, this is how you do that.’ ”

It was in no small thanks to Hogestyn’s chemistry with Hall that the show abandoned its plans to make John Black a short-term role. Introduced as “The Pawn” (click here for a refresher on that landmark storyline), John was revealed to be Marlena’s thought-to-be-dead husband, Roman Brady, who had been played by Wayne Northrop from 1981-84.

As a guest on Digest‘s podcast, Dishing with Digest, in 2022, his DAYS leading lady Deidre Hall (Marlena) recalled the beginnings of her long working relationship with Hogestyn. She said, “Drake came in to audition/screen test, I guess. I had agreed to test with everybody. I ran with everybody the same amount of time, practiced with everybody the same amount of time, and did the scene with Drake. Later, everybody was saying, ‘I don’t know, what do you think?’ ‘I don’t know, what do you think?”’ And they said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think there’s any contest.’ ‘Who do you think it is?’ I said, ‘I think it’s Drake. I mean, he’s got everything you need. I think it’s a good look. I think we look well together. I think he’s got an intensity. He’s got a strength and a masculinity but a sexiness. Of everybody that you brought in, I think he’s your best choice.’ And they had been in the same place but kind of waited for me to say it, I guess. And so he was hired. I guess none of us stopped to think, ‘He’s not really what you would call a terribly experienced actor.’ I mean, he’d been a sports guy, a baseball player.” From the start, she smiled, “He was dreamy. He loved to rehearse, wanted to get it right, very serious about the work…. I think it worked from the very first moment.”

Hogestyn, of course, agreed to a longer stay — and while his professional life was on the upswing, that success paled in comparison to the happy tidings in his personal life: He and Victoria wed and began raising their family — daughters Whitney, Alexandra and Rachael and son Ben (who, for a time, appeared on General Hospital as Lucas Jones) — in California. In 2018, he shared his thoughts on how to have a lasting marriage with Digest, noting, “Stay married! You just stay married. And then you just fall in love with that same person over and over and over again…. I fell in love with Victoria when I was 15, she was 12, on the baseball field. She’s on the handlebars of her girlfriend Lisa Miller’s bike, I’m playing center field, go figure. That moment she just shocked me and I just screamed, ‘No! I have too much to do with my life,’ and from then on that was it! I look at her, I see her, I can see her when she was 12, when she was 13, when she was 14, 15, 16 … all the moments.”

When Hall left DAYS in 1987, Roman moved on to other romantic pairings, most significantly opposite Genie Francis (Laura, General Hospital), who played Diana Colville, and Staci Greason, who played Isabella Toscano. In 2015, Francis told Digest, “Drake was adorable and funny,” and in 2022, Greason told Digest, “Drake really took me under his wing.” Then, in 1991, DAYS seized the opportunity to bring not only Hall, but the original Roman, Wayne Northrop, back to the show, which is how Hogestyn went back to playing John Black. The actor recalled to Digest in 2015, “I felt in a sense of fair play, I hadn’t created that character [of Roman]. Wayne did and had great success with it…. It was a good opportunity to re-explore John Black.” In 2018, he told Digest, “I hold those years [of playing Roman] very close to my heart, and I’m very proud and protective of my interpretation of Roman Brady.”

Hogestyn played John through 2009, when both he and Hall were dropped from the cast due to budget cuts. They were rehired in 2011. “I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking that DAYS was ever going to make the phone call to come back,” Hogestyn told Digest that year, adding, “Did I hope it would happen? Absolutely…. I was welcomed back with open arms. It brought a tear to my eyes.”

In May 2016, Hogestyn experienced brain injuries that kept him off the show for several months. Opening up to Digest upon his return to work in 2017, the actor said, “I don’t know if I’m being reflective or not, but you know, this whole thing with losing Joe Mascolo [ex-Stefano, who passed away in 2016] … I really loved that guy. I thought that he was going to live forever. I really did. I mean, his mom and dad lived up to their hundreds. So, as we go through weddings and funerals on the show, we do it in our own lives, too, and it’s kind of crazy.”

He went on to say, “I feel life is good…. Time’s going by. That’s just it. It’s amazing. It’s remarkable. We live a dual life here, you know what I mean? We not only have our real life, but we come here and have another life, and it’s really, really unusual. I wish everybody could experience this. It’s really rich and it’s really full and I’m very blessed. It’s a great way to go through life. I was texting with a [mentor] of mine [and] he said, ‘Hollywood really is a meat grinder,’ and I said, ‘Yeah. You have to know when you’re on top of the roller-coaster ride and be prepared for what’s coming next.’ Because that roller coaster goes up and goes down, and you have to have a very, very strong support group and sense of self and be very realistic. He was saying, ‘It’s amazing that you’ve had a gig half your life working in the entertainment industry on a show, and being passionate about what you love to do. How fortunate are you?’ And I said, ‘Yes. Exactly.’ “

Hogestyn is survived by his wife, Victoria, their four children Rachael, Ben, Whitney, Alexandra and their partners, and seven grandchildren.

Soap Opera Digest extends our deepest condolences to Hogestyn’s loved ones. He will be greatly missed.