DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[Joseph]

It Was Obvious Stefano had an obsession with Beauty and Craved For What he couldn't Have or Was Beyond His Reach, in Marlena's Case, She Was A Beautiful Woman Who Always Refused his advances despite he literally Putting The World At her Feet, That Was His Fascination IMHO

[j swift]

It is an interesting question because it has become such a given fact over time, that the origin gets lost.  My opinion is that his motivation changed over time, and with different writers.

Originally, Roman was Stefano's mortal enemy, and Marlena is just a means to torture Roman and bring him anguish.  Stefano is equally willing to kidnap and victimize Hope and Marlena, simply by virtue of their affiliation with the Brady boys.

Then, James Reilly writes the Queen of Night plot and suddenly Stefano is literally possessed by Marlena's essence. Later in Aremid and the Rachel Blake story, the lore evolves. It seems like Stefano is the kind of man who needs to dominate the women he loves.  It is an over simplification of decades of story, but it feels like vengeance turned to obsession based on the fact that Marlena was the one woman who he could not control because she was always an independent person.

Stefano was always beholden to his many children.  And those who cared for him were inexplicably loyal.  Look at Celeste and Lee, who put up with years of his BS.  Then along comes Marlena who is single, professional, and unburdened by family history.  She is the ultimate challenge, because she cannot be subjugated; even by the devil himself!  To me, that is what drew him to her (and Hope).  It is a feminist allegory about women struggling to find an equal and be free of the old-fashioned definition of love being equated with surrendering to a man's desire.

Edited September 11, 2023 by j swift

[carolineg]

I think it's fair to say Stefano was always at the very least enamored with Marlena.  Even after Roman's (Wayne) first death Stefano attempted to kidnap Marlena and the baby twins to ostensibly make a family with Marlena and the kids.

JER is the one that ramped the obsession up and it started with Marlena trying to seduce Stefano to save John in Maison Blanche.  He then became progressively obsessed with her.  Then she took care of him after he was injured when MarDevil tossed him off the roof.  Marlena softened to Stefano without his memory and was quite friendly with him letting him live with her at the Penthouse.   This gave Stefano some hope that Marlena and he had a real chance which IMO the show almost seemed like it was heading for before the Aremid shenanigans.  

Anyhow, there isn't a single moment or exact reason, but I actually think you can connect the dots enough through history to make it plausible, if not terribly realistic.  Especially with the rewrites of Stefano having Marlena for her lost years as opposed to Orpheus.  JER added enough retcons to move the story and obsession along.

[soapfave06]

Thanks for the feedback everyone - this makes sense. Overall, it’s quite fascinating and one of the things I love about soaps, how their story progressed over years and years. Looking back, the only thing that I would deem silly would be the retcon that Stefano took Marlena from Orpheus. I can accept Queen of the Night and Lady in a Cage but that’s too far. I think the psychology of Marlena actually living on the island with the children of Orpheus would have more dramatic aftermath than Marlena in a coma. 
 

Stefano’s introduction seems all over the place, going from Doug and Julie, the Horton’s to primarily the Brady’s and seeking revenge on Roman for destroying his operation, this coupled with Megan’s death drives him to Marlena and for some reason wanting to raise the twins. 
 

I didn’t realize how well JER laid out the groundwork for Stefano/Marlena-from her seduction to the possession to his paralysis to Maison Blanche and Lady in a Cage. That’s an unrivaled era! 

[j swift]

It is ironic, in retrospect, that the Stefano's obsession with Marlena got a lot of explanation in the cannon, but Hope is just sort of collateral damage.  It is no wonder that Hope was the one to finally shoot Stefano, because he tortured her just for sport. 

His main beef was Roman/John, not Bo.  He whisked Marlena off to Paris, while Hope was stuck in New Orleans (a nice place to visit, but the humidity would be hell for a woman with her hair texture).  And he was really only interested in the older doppelgänger version of Hope, which no woman wants to hear. 

[carolineg]

I 100% agree that the show dropped the ball badly with Stefano having Marlena vs. Orpheus.  And then to bring Orpheus back and the canon is he just lost Marlena along the way lol.  The Tale of Two Romans is poorly executed and the fact that Marlena's missed years are just dropped until decades later is weird.  RoJohn and Marlena were all about discovering what happened to Marlena in those years and then Wayne's Roman appears and it's not important at all.  I get the Roman matter was much bigger, but Marlena never really seemed curious about her lost years or got a true perspective of her losing time as well.  The POV was always about Wayne/Drake's characters.  There were so many things Marlena could have done those years from having RoJohn's baby to being a Princess Gina like Stefano operative, or even an amnesiac Marlena falling for Orpheus, but, alas it was always about the Romans.  I tend to think Marlena/Roman's returns at the same time was just too big of a story to tell at the time.  The two returns would have been better off spread out.  I am not complaining about how the 90's ended up for Marlena, but there are a lot of ways you could have gone with that story.

When JER brought Stefano back he really was presented as a scary figure.  Marlena was hysterical while pregnant with Belle afraid Stefano would take her away from her family again.  With the re-introduction of the Dimeras JER really did make Stefano out to be a very scary character.  It obviously devolved into camp, but I did think his introduction played out well and Stefano was retconned into having Roman/Marlena back in 1991 so that wasn't his initial idea.

[Joseph]

LMAO! I never Knew DOOL had Other Real Life Twins playing Together! 

Camilla And Carey More As Grace And Gillian Spencer!

 

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[j swift]

@Joseph They were the Forrester twins.  Gillian Spencer was on AMC

It was certainly a weird time for DOOL because they came on right around the time of Drew and Shane Donovan.  So, Shane not only had to worry about his son who was named after his twin being kidnapped by his ex-wife Emma, but also is ISA partner who also had a twin.

Of course, Samantha & Marlena were the first real life twins on Days.  But, with Tommy/Addie, Cassie/Rex, Sami/Eric, Allie/Johnny, Jules/Carver, Stefan/Jake and all the look-a-likes running around Salem they should have just re-named the show Nature or Nurture. 

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Edited September 12, 2023 by j swift

[Joseph]

True But I meant I never Knew Another Pair Of Real-Life Twin Sisters Played Together on Days, I only knew about Deidre And Andrea, but you are right, DOOL never had any shortage of Twins, Look-alikes, Clones Or Doppëlgangers!

I was afraid I would confuse their surnames! It got entangled on B&B Lmao! 

[Contessa Donatella]

Uh-oh. 

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[Contessa Donatella]

And that it went with the secret being kept until the reveal 8 years down the road! Just amazing! But, you couldn't tell it today. 

Here is what I think is a first for daytime. 

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[Manny]

I am sure this was already mentioned here, but I just recently started watching the reality show "Love Is Blind" on Netflix. And watching it, I thought it was really familiar to me in its concept and name. And then I remembered that waaaay back during the Last Blast teens, Belle, Mimi and Cassie participated on the reality show Love Is Blind where they competed for a guy without seeing his face!

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Who would have thought it would actually become a real reality show in 2020s?!

I wonder if the creator of the LIB got inspiration from DAYS Maybe B&C (or was it Reilly?) should get some royalties hahah

[DynamiteKiddo]

LOLOL.  It was Dena Higley. 

That was Kyle Brandt's Philip's intro, too.

[Manny]

LOL Wow, Dena Higely... such a visionary.. who would've though?!  

[Contessa Donatella]

I just got this old Digest & this was in it. And it was on my mind. 

Hayes, B., of Hayes &. Hayes [Doug Williams]. (1982). A Tribute to Brenda Benet: A Memorial. Soap Opera Digest, 7(16), 132–133.

A MEMORIAL

Is there ever a time when suicide is the answer? When pain surpasses its own threshold? When the seductive song of death is sweeter than the cacophony of life?

The chilling reply is "yes." Otherwise there would be no suicide. Not even a need for the word.

Suicide happens just often enough to remind us it is the solution for some. The final bleak option to dealing with one's overburden.

There is, of course, total disagreement on the moral aspect of suicide, with as many different points of view as there are religions, societies and philosophers.  Some consign the perpetrator to hell's eternal fires: others respect the act as a glorification through self-sacrifice.

But everyone jolts together in sudden agreement at the loss of a loved one, the sympathetic hurt, the deprivation and the frustration as the realization that a life has been snuffed out too early.

Our lovely friend, Brenda Benet, apparently took her own life early last April. Of course, whenever it was it was early, too damned early. Brenda was the perfect actress: stunningly beautiful, talented and utterly capable of her craft, dedicated and responsible, and sensitive to the extreme.

And there's the rub -- SENSITIVE!

The best actresses are the most sensitive, you know. In order to permit audiences to see into the depths of their private emotions, to discover choice human truths, the good actresses forego protective covering.

There is no other way. Either you protect your soft center with a hard shell of inhibitions or you bare your soul and take your chances. There never has been a hard actress; that would be a contradiction of terms, an oxymoron. There may be loud actresses, demanding actresses, inexhaustible workers, picky, tasteless, even hateful actresses --but insensitive? No way!

And Brenda was an actress. I'm sure she was sensitive to the fact that she was admired, appreciated, loved; that she enjoyed close friendships with many, both men and women; that she was aware she was considered abundantly successful.

And yet those positive components of her life and career couldn't balance out on her scale of importance. The negative tray was just too heavily weighted.

Three years ago, when Brenda first came on "Days of our Lives," she still had hopes that her marriage could be saved. It could not. She watched the pieces come apart. She was not a backbiter or a griper, so she didn't talk about it. But Brenda and I worked together closely during her first two years on the show, and I say Brenda was deeply hurt by the dissolution of her relationship with her husband.

Wounded, yes, but not killed. After all, she still had the wondrous product of that marriage, her 6-year-old son, Christopher. Brenda's life had come to focus on Christopher. When she spoke of Christopher, when he came to spend the day with her at the studio, when she touched him, talked to him, smiled at him, it was obvious that Christopher was the consummation, the reality, the treasure of Brenda's life. And it was beautiful. Love like that is inspiring to all who experience it.

And then she lost him. With a jerking suddenness, he was dead and gone, and Brenda was embracing only his memory.

Was she shattered by this? She didn't outwardly betray such impact. Instead, she consoled her grieving friends. She soothingly explained how Christopher had known he was going to die, described the ways he had let her know this, even detailed how she herself had had premonitions that he would never reach his seventh birthday.

No grief, no hysterics, no anger, no tears. Enigmatically, that torturous day of Christopher's death seemed to be swept under the carpet of fate.  I would have expected Brenda, the super-sensitive actress, to have been unable to control her emotions, let alone cover them.

In retrospect I wish she had screamed herself hoarse, torn the drapes, kicked and stomped and pounded herself to a frazzle, cried uncontrollably until exhaustion claimed her.

Because it is my opinion that she bottled up all those feelings of loss and unfairness of life, and the sadness and anger added perhaps a catalytic agent of guilt and "what if" and "why me?," and corked it up tight to put away in her pocket.

But such feelings don't just go away. You must express them, face them, deal with them and admit their presence, even if you don't understand their function, before time can work its healing magic.

I honestly think that Brenda -- for some reason -- didn't face her loss. And it caught up with her, blowing the cork off that bottle she had hidden away.

I believe that, had she accepted her grief and anger and allowed the tears to flow naturally, her eyes would have cleared so she could see all the reasons to live now. She would have now been able to open herself to the caress of love offered by friends on all sides. And she would not have abruptly deprived the world of her own special brand of love.

Many, many people loved Brenda. Not only her co-actors on "Days," and the producers and crews with whom she worked, but also her soap opera family across the land. Ever since the stunning news of her death was made public, people have been moved to write words of sympathy to Susan and me, to the producers, to other members of the cast. They've sent condolence cards. Masses have been celebrated. Poems and songs and eulogies have been composed. It's been wonderful. Wonderful, and terribly sad.

We all wish we'd been in the right place at the right time to prevent her suicide. We're sorry for the anguish she felt. We wish we'd sensed something that day, or the day before, and said, "Brenda, I love you and don't want you to leave. Please, don't do this."

But today each of us is older and sadder and, we hope, wiser. Perhaps we'll all be more inclined to say, "I love you and need you" to each other more spontaneously, not waiting for the look of panic that signals depression to the point of desperation. I, for one, hope so.

We loved you, Brenda, and we'll miss you.

• Bill Hayes, of Hayes and Hayes