DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[Bright Eyes]

Well since they never explained their break up after leaving in the 80's, maybe Julie secretly had a child this whole time. Maybe she thought the father wasn't Doug so she gave it up for adoption. It's possible if you want it to be.

[carolineg]

Sami became a grandma in her 30's and it didn't age her too bad.  But they never styled her as a grandma of course. 

Suzanne has a nice look that does feel younger.  And Kate/Marlena dress pretty bad, but also project younger.  I know Koslow is a decade younger but she seems at least 20 years younger.  Anyway, styling aside, they made Julie older by taking her out of being Maggie/Marlena's contemporary (even though she previously was) and making her 'older' than them when she didn't have to be.  Like she became Hope's de facto mom when Marlena actually moved on to be Hope's peer even though they weren't the same ages but the show told us they were vaguely in a similar age range.   My rambling point is I think they could have easily made more of the connection between Marlena, Laura, Maggie etc and integrated her with Kate/Vivian instead of making her seem older than them.

Sure why not?  I would buy it if it was a halfway decent story.

[Paul Raven]

Yes it was odd that Doug and Julie never had a child. Doug went off and fathered Dougie but that has never been referenced.

Perhaps they felt that Julie being a grandma around that time would be jarring if she had a child.

Also the fact that Bill and Susan didn't have children may have been a factor.

It would have been refreshing if it had been addressed with Doug and Julie making a conscious decision not to have children for a variety of reason.

That could have led  to some plot points. Maggie could think Julie selfish when she was unable to have a child with Mickey.

Tom and Alice could have different viewpoints and Hope might be upset not to have a sibling.

[carolineg]

I think people and especially soap watchers find it odd for a couple to consciously make the choice not to have kids.  I have been married for 15 years and still get the why don't you have kids question and it's just our choice, but people never stop asking.  I am just not sure it relates to viewers that well if that makes sense.

Also justice for Dougie.  Why has he never been brought back lol

[jam6242]

Doug and Julie were actually talking about having a baby shortly before Maggie’s oven blew up on Julie and their marriage fell apart.  Then Hope was SORASed to a teen shortly before they were remarried.

[Vee]

I think Susan looks great today. They had Julie running around with Doug looking like the Captain and Tennille for many, many years. Letting her go silver now is fine and natural, she's just a different type of beauty from Suzanne/Maggie. I do agree they over-aged the character long ago out of the right character sphere in a way more typical of Irna Phillips back in the day; she didn't get it nearly as bad as Patricia Bruder on ATWT though, who was never played remotely near her actual age again.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Vee

[Khan]

Good question!

Yeah, but I don't think the Captain and Tennille ever brought a tiger with them!

[will81]

There was a great but very short story on Sex and the City when Miranda was pregnant and intitially planned to have an abortion which was at the same time Charlotte was having issues getting pregnant. I think this story would have worked well between Julie and Maggie, but obviously more drawn out. 

[te.]

Julie shouldn't even had been in her 30s when her adult son turned up - the character should've been around 26/27; of course Susan was slightly older (32) but either way it prematurely aged her into mid/late 30s. I've always said that SORASing Mike Horton and David Banning were the first huge mistake DAYS did because it prematurely aged a lot of characters around them. Ironically, I think they realised that in Mike's case, which is probably why he was de-SORAS'd (which messed up continuity even more).

Then of course, you have the Marlena problem - the fact that Marlena stepped up as the lead heroine probably kept Julie from taking the center spot again and as has been said, instead of making her and Marlena peers they made Julie seem much older than Marlena which kept pushing her into the "old" bracket while Marlena was pushed into the younger bracket with Hope et al.

The difference is of course that Sami was young mother herself and Will was never drastically SORAS'd, so her being a young grandmother wasn't weird. Now if they bring on Ari as a teen sometime soon...

Please register in order to view this content

[AbcNbc247]

I think they shouldn't have aged Mike and David as much as they did. Yeah, the younger characters mandate came down and all the soaps had to follow it but they could have just aged them into teens, like 15-16 year olds, as opposed to adults that were getting married, having kids, working full time jobs at Anderson, etc.

It worked with the Last Blast Crew, in some ways. Let them be teens for a while instead of rushing them into adulthood and making Julie a grandmother at the age of 28 or whatever 

Please register in order to view this content

[Chris 2]

Alice/Addie/Julie/David never made a lick of sense, age wise. Frances Reid was about 35 years older than the actor playing her great grandson.

Once they made Julie the mother of an adult son in the 1970s, that pretty much cut off the possibility that Doug and Julie would have their own child. I know that the Hayeses were unhappy with Doug and Julie primarily existing as Hope’s parent in the early 80s, which is why they were let go. I wonder if SSH made a fuss about David being aged so much in the 70s, because that was the beginning of the end of her time as the show’s romantic heroine.

[carolineg]

I think this was more of a problem then David being SORAS'ed.  I am not sure if the show intended to do this or not, but Julie was more or less sidelined when Marlena became the big thing.  I think Marlena as a character offered more possibilities in exec/writers minds because she was more of a blank slate and Julie was going to end up with Doug because they were a supercouple and married in real life and had gone through a ton of story.  I genuinely do think Marlena/Julie started out the same age because they were both Don's love interests. BUT i also think the show made Marlena too old when they introduced her.  Obviously, Marlena was a smaller role and meant to be temporary, but she was already an established, respected psychiatrist when she first appeared so then the show had to keep backtracking on her age because she was already presumably 30ish when she was introduced and I don't think even Deidre was 30 when she started.  And it was always weird to me when the show pushed Hope/Marlena as Bff in the 2000s when Bo/John were close but Hope was a teenager when Marlena was already twice married and they weren't that close lol.

[Franko]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I still want to know what happened with Steve Olson's visit in 1972 that made the show abandon this character and decide to SORAS Mike and David instead.

[j swift]

I think the problem with David's SORASing on Days was similar to the problem of SORASing Jamey on AW, both were the sons of ambitious women with large personalities, but they were a bit of a drip.  David should have been a younger male Julie, covetous, striving, and a social climber.  Instead he was a little bit troublesome, but easily manipulated, and not very enterprising. 

I wanted a David that grew up repeating the mistakes of his mother.  The loss of his father and the unstable stepfather relationships of his youth were a perfect breeding ground for the feelings of envy that drove Julie as a teen.  So, I wanted her to be more of a mentor to David, rather than judgemental of his romantic interests.   

Then, Hope's rejection of Julie would have made more sense and seem motivated by her rivalry with David, as opposed to suddenly hating Julie and wanting Doug for herself.

Edited January 30, 2022 by j swift

[Khan]

I don't think they de-SORAS'ed Mike so much as they have kept him in "chronological suspension" since Wesley Eure.  OTOH, Laura HAD aged between Rosemary Forsyth and Jaime Lyn Bauer, but she did so very, very slowly, lol.