Bill Hayes (Doug) has died

2010: BILL HAYES (Doug) REMEMBERS FRANCES REID (Alice).

Back in 2010, when Frances Reid passed away, Bill Hayes sent me two eulogies he had written for her. It looks like they were written for different services. Here's the lovely words Bill spoke about Frances. He titled this one "Creampuff."

CREAMPUFF

If Frances Reid was a dessert, she’d be a cream puff. Solid and crusty on the outside, soft and tasty on the inside.

Her exterior, of course, was what she showed. That was the tough talker who fought for actors’ rights on the AFTRA board for thirty years, who deleted the dreaded word “crediting” from her contracts, and never stopped being incensed over the unjust havoc fostered by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

My first Days episode was taped in February, 1970, so when I met Frances she was just 55. Stunningly beautiful! Formidable woman! Forthright. Those of you who knew Frances in recent years only experienced the embers of the fire that was Frances. I was privileged to know her when that fire was a hot flame. She would give you that pert smile, take a puff on her cigarillo, and CALL YOU OUT! Didn’t matter who you were—actor, writer, director, producer—she’d let you know you were wrong and how to fix it.

Superb actress. She, who had starred on Broadway as Roxane and Ophelia, who had faced life as Portia on TV and giggled with the girls in STAGE DOOR, took those words written by—how many, fifty?—different writers—in thousands of Days episodes—put them in her personal percolator and turned them into Alice Horton. She was so good, she made other actors better. That’s a talent. Mac was still drinking in the 70s, and many of her scenes were with him. I never saw her once “give him a look.”

Here’s my take on Frances: The inner Frances Reid was Alice Horton. Yeah. Loving, compassionate, helpful. Perfect casting. Ask the country. The millions who secretly wished that woman was in their family. She was in their hearts.

To me, Frances gave herself away. Prime example: The first several years I was on the show, she opened her beautiful Brentwood home at Christmas time for the cast to gather as a family. If you wanted to bring a potluck dish or a bottle, that was okay. But her edict was: “No presents! And no ornaments, because there will be NO CHRISTMAS TREE!”

Well, when Wesley Eure (teenage Mike) was driving over to her house for one of those parties, he spied a great big old tumbleweed that had bounced in from the desert. Stopped, picked it up and crammed that huge ball of springy dead weed into his back seat. He grandly brought it into her house, announcing: “Frances! I’ve brought you your Christmas tree!” She fell on the floor laughing. And she kept the damn thing. The following Christmas, there was that tumbleweed, and it had lights on it, and ornaments!

I treasure the scenes I had with Frances.

There was a time before Doug married Addie, or Julie, or Lee, or Julie again, or Julie one more time, when he used to flirt with Alice. Called her his best girl. It’s true. Once, when Tom wasn’t around, and Alice was gardening on her knees out in front of Horton House, Doug sang to her—a capella.

You’re my best girl
And nothing you do is wrong.
I’m proud you belong to me.
And if a day is rough for me,
Having you there’s enough for me.
But if, some day,
Another girl comes along,
It won’t take her long to see
That I’ll still be found
Just hangin’ around
My best girl.

Don’t you know, she lowered her eyelids and gave me a long sideways look, then went back to cutting her flowers.

Another favorite memory of mine is Frances playing Groucho in the Cat-Scanner Review, Days’s one courageous staging of a variety show. She wouldn’t rehearse extra hours to learn the sketch unless they paid extra; well, they couldn’t, so she didn’t rehearse. But she did the Groucho walk and flipped ashes off that big cigar perfectly.

Frances was always the star of the annual out-take reel. Why? Because the writers all loved to give Alice lines chock full of character names. For years, it seemed that at least once in every script Alice would blithely tell Tom, “Laura’s in the emergency room and Shawn went to check with Abe about Sami because Marlena told Jennifer Hope can’t find a parking place.” Frances would give the director a “Why me?” look and say, “Who are all these people?” Maybe the writers just gave her those lines to beef up the bloopers. It’s possible.

As I see it, all those family members who came and left, those who Alice reprimanded, those Alice cried over, joked with, advised, those Alice loved,…. I think that was Frances’s family.

But, not just them. We’re all her children and grandchildren. I mean everybody: the onstage crew, the makeup room artists, the production people. All of us.

So, it’s certainly fitting that we gather to remember our dear friend, to say thanks, Frances, for all you gave us, to collectively mourn the passing of such a bright link in our family chain.

I sure am grateful that I’ve been a part of this unique, long-running story, which gave me the opportunity to work with and get to know the special person who was Frances Reid. For me it’s been a wonderful meal, and Frances was indeed the dessert. The dessert was, as I said, … … … a creampuff.
 
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