The amazing story of the actress who's played the same role since 1973

In the summer of 1973, this actress joined the cast of the soap opera 'Days of Our Lives' in the role of Maggie Horton.

One of the show's writers, William J. Bell, and the executive producer, Betty Corday, thought she was perfect for the guest role of a farmer with an injury in her spinal cord who had to walk with a crutch.

Time and the unconditional love of the audience have proved Bell and Corday right. Suzanne Rogers is still playing Maggie Horton to this day!

In the summer of 2023, Suzanne Rogers made television history for playing the same character in a series for 50 years.

The actress has played in more than 3,000 episodes of the series.

Suzanne Rogers celebrated the anniversary with her character Maggie Horton as if they were celebrating a wedding anniversary. The actress was 30 years old when she debuted in 'Days of Our Lives' and, at 80 years old, continues to play the same character.

Nowadays, these kinds of things are certainly uncommon. We are used to constantly seeing how series end and actors move on. However, 'Days of Our Lives' is not your common TV show because the NBC series has surpassed 14,000 episodes.

Frances Reid (wearing red in the picture), who played Alice Grayson-Horton in the soap opera, was the oldest actress in the cast before Suzanne Rogers. Reid began working for the series in 1965 and retired in 2007 at 92.

Having to play a character for 5 decades means growing old with it and going along with many plot twists during the show. Maggie Horton's character has been through many ups and downs throughout 3,000 episodes.

Her struggles with alcohol, murder attempts, her own attempt to take her life, and her miraculous resurrection have been part of the character's life, as well as an illness that the actress suffered in real life and that, of course, affected Maggie Horton as well.

In 1984, the actress was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis - a rare disease that attacks facial muscles and provokes hair loss - and had to retire from the series for almost a year.

When she came back on set, she asked Betty Corday, the producer of the show, if her character could be diagnosed with the same illness so she could spread awareness about it. The idea was accepted and it became part of the plot of the series.

The thing that was most difficult to sell to the audience was the resurrection of her character after being murdered by a serial killer. It occurred in 2003, in a "whodunnit" type of episode that pushed the actress out of the show for a while.

Although Maggie Horton's character was still appearing as a ghost, the audience wasn't very happy and the writers of 'Days of Our Lives' decided to introduce one of the biggest plot twists ever: Resurrecting all the dead characters of the series.

James E. Reilly, one of the main writers of the show, created a fictional city called Melaswen (which is New Salem spelled backward) where Maggie Horton and other characters were alive again and could, with time, be brought back to the current story of the show.

The last big absence of Suzanne Rogers during the show took place in November 2020 when the actress choked on a pill and had to be admitted to the hospital.

As Rogers explained to Soap Opera Digest, she woke up two weeks later not knowing what had happened and just aware that she was in a hospital in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

The worst thing was that the incident resurfaced the myasthenia that was diagnosed in 1984, and the actress had to stay in the hospital and have treatment for another 6 weeks.

In May 2021, Suzanne Rogers returned to 'Days of Our Lives' and the audience was relieved to hear that Maggie Horton was back in action. Indeed, Rogers is and will always be a TV history legend.

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