Remembering Drake Hogestyn/John Black from "Days of Our Lives"

Growing up in Miami Beach as a geeky, curly-haired TV nerd who was sometimes confused as a girl (no joke)  who wore corduroy pants from Sears to school even in the endless year-round summer heat and humidity, I was always drawn to soap operas for some reason (part of it may be because I would only see my friends in school, rarely outside the classroom, and these fictional characters kept me company.) 

From "The Young and The Restless" and "As The World Turns" to "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives," I would tune in each day after school in elementary and junior high to learn the latest plot twists involving perpetual lovebirds Holden and Lily on ATWT or the enduring drama between the wealthy Quartermaines and nurses and doctors at the fictional GH hospital in Port Charles.

But when I got older (in my late teens in college and early to mid 20s) I also discovered the Los Angeles fashionistas on "The Bold and The Beautiful" on CBS and then the Midwestern characters on "Days of Our Lives" on NBC which aired the show right after the former.  I immediately got hooked and desperately wanted to know what was happening in the fictional town of Salem.

Photo via New York Times via Getty Images.

I loved following the adventures and loves and tribulations of the town's residents including the never-ending love story between John Black and Dr. Marlena Evans, played respectfully by Drake Hogestyn and Diedre Hall. 

For years, I committed to the show in the mid to late 1990s and 2000s and the 2010s and gasped on Friday afternoons for the weekly cliffhanger (a storyline once involved Marlena's alien offspring.)  So when I learned that Mr. Hogestyn, who played the brawny, hairy-chested (can you tell I am gay?), cool and debonair John Black who would raise an eyebrow whenever he suspected something amiss in Salem, had passed away at the young age of 70, I volunteered to write his obituary. 

I knew enough about his character and the show that I could write the story using my ingrained institutional knowledge. But during my research, I was surprised to learn that Mr. Hogestyn had early dreams of being a professional baseball player and had played for the minor leagues for the St. Louis Cardinals and then New York Yankees, his favorite team. 

After an injury, he pivoted to acting which eventually led to his portrayal of John Black/Roman Brady and thus forever changed the landscape of daytime TV.

Anyways, this is a long way of saying, here is my New York Times obituary on Mr. Hogestyn.