Actress Frances Reid of 'Days of Our Lives' dies at 95 By Valerie J. Nelson LOS ANGELES TIMES 02/05/2010
LOS ANGELES — Frances Reid, who was the last original cast member of "Days of Our Lives" and portrayed the soap opera's matriarch, Alice Horton, for 42 years, died Wednesday. She was 95.
In announcing her death, NBC called Ms. Reid "a true icon of the daytime genre." No other details regarding her death were provided.
The Texas-born Ms. Reid was already a veteran of Broadway when she debuted in the première of "Days of Our Lives" on Nov. 8, 1965. She made her final appearance in 2007.
Familiar with the demands of daily, live television after appearing on the soaps "As the World Turns" and "The Edge of Night," Ms. Reid was hesitant to take the part on "Days." But roles for women over 40 were hard to come by, so she finally decided to accept the role, according to an NBC biography. ShopSTL Marketplace
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She agreed to do the show "just for a short while," Ms. Reid said decades later. "But I found it very interesting ... and I was having fun."
Her character was a housewife and longtime hospital volunteer. She once aided a prison escape by drugging doughnuts, a homemade delicacy that was her specialty and often integral to her plot lines. In true soap fashion, the Horton matriarch was thought to have been killed off — a doughnut played a role — in 2004 but was found alive two months later.
Ms. Reid had "a very sharp and cunning wit," the show's executive producer, Ken Corday, told the Hollywood Reporter in 2005. "In the old days, she might go up and forget a line, and the things that would come out of her mouth would kill the crew. We'd have to take five while they howled."
She was born Dec. 9, 1914, in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Ms. Reid appeared in more than a dozen plays on Broadway, playing Ophelia in "Hamlet," Roxane in "Cyrano de Bergerac" and Viola in "Twelfth Night" in the late 1940s.
In the early days of television, she reprised the role of Roxane, again opposite Jose Ferrer, in a TV adaptation of "Cyrano" that aired as an episode of "The Philco Television Playhouse."
In 1954, she took her first part on a TV soap opera, playing the title character in "Portia Faces Life" but quit after six months because she found the workload "exhausting," according to the website Soap Opera Central.
Before joining "Days," Ms. Reid had roles on about 30 TV shows and later appeared in the 1966 film "Seconds" with Rock Hudson and the 1971 movie "The Andromeda Strain."
Her husband of 39 years, actor Philip Bourneuf, died in 1979. The couple had no children -----------------------------------------------------------
I'll say it. I'm a 41 year old male who has watched DOOL since I was 12 years old. Three years of college, and that whole time only one class at noon, because I needed it for my major. I still read the synopsis every day online. All because of a big part played by Mrs. Reid (and Hope when she was young and a hottie!). Between her donuts and cakes with breaking-out-of-jail-items for Patch and Bo, it made for many great days (!) indeed. Thanks for the memories, Mrs. H. You will be missed.
Aw, what sad news! Wonder if they'll have some sort of big funeral or event like they did when Macdonald Carey passed away in the mid 90s? [And hopefully it's better done than Mickey's "funeral" ;)]
But the whole point of Jessica getting the sniper rifle and shooting from so far away was so that DL wouldn't see the bullet coming (and therefore, wouldn't be able to allow it to phase through him.)