It's a common story device on soap operas to bring characters back from the dead. Longtime soap star Deidre Hall is opening up about the "ridiculous and outrageous" plot device.
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The TV icon played Marlena Evans on the soap Days of Our Lives for more than 50 years. In the past five decades, she's seen numerous characters make a return from death, including her own character. Speaking on the Feedback with Ira Madison III, she opened up about why death is never the end on the show.
"Myself included," Hall said. "It's just, you know, it's a thing we get to do in daytime. We get to be ridiculous and outrageous."
For one, Marlena was killed off on the show in 1982. But the soap later reconned it to be Marlena's twin sister Samantha who died. Sometimes, bringing back characters are in response to public opinion.
A Soap Opera Resurrection
"On the day that my death scene aired, there was an outcry on the East Coast when it aired there," Hall said. "And so we heard about that and I was at work that day and we were going on as normal and then my producer came to the dressing room and said, 'The East Coast let the West Coast fans know that they've killed you off and they're beginning to form a picket line around the network."
So it seems that they brought back Marlena to help stave off the rage from fans. But it is far from the only time the show killed off Marlena or other characters on the show.
One storyline even saw Hall's character possessed by the devil.
We had been shooting shows where strange things were happening — Christmas trees catching fire, blah, blah, blah, you know the story — and I got called upstairs before Christmas break, and I thought, 'This is not a good thing.' I ended up in a conversation with Tom Langan, who was our EP at that point, and Jim Riley, our head writer. This is a tough room," Hall, 78, recalls. "They said, 'We just wanted to talk to you before we break to let you know that you're the one who's causing all the chaos.' Okay, why is that? And he said, 'Because you're possessed by the devil.' As one is."
