Days of our Lives’ Julie Dove Reveals the Marlena Evans Moment That Made Her Cry

Julie Dove, who plays Connie on Days of our Lives, is thrilled to be working on the same stage as many of her idols. However, the longtime DAYS devotee recently shared with Soap Hub the storyline that nearly got her to swear off the show!

Salem Insider

As Connie’s story has heated up (read our story about that here), Dove’s been working on the show more and more. As a result, she’s gotten to meet actors who aren’t even necessarily in her story orbit including Stephen Nichols (Steve) and Mary Beth Evans (Kayla). “I’d been here for a few weeks [before] I told them I’d been scared to even talk to them,” Dove says. “I told Mary Beth about how I’d written her a fan letter and that it meant a lot to me that she’d sent one back. I told Steven about how I’d met him once, too.

“They laughed and said, ‘Oh, my gosh — you should have introduced yourself to us earlier!'” says Dove. The actress was even more apprehensive about approaching Deidre Hall (Marlena); it turns out she didn’t have to!

“Deidre came up to me,” Dove says. “She said that I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you that you’re doing a good job. I almost died!”

It’s not a case of mere shyness that kept Dove from chatting up her fellow actors. Sure, she’s a longtime viewer but she’s a professional, too. “Everything’s so fast,” she says. “You’re in the makeup room but everyone is working on their lines. There’s not a lot of chitchat going on. There’s so much on which to focus. Everyone one the show — every single person — is doing an incredible job. It’s my understanding that there’s a lot more being produced every day than there was in the 80s and 90s.”

Speaking of the 1980s, a pivotal story development stands out in Dove’s mind. It was so dramatic and painful, she almost had to stop watching the show! We’re talking about when Roman (Wayne Northrop) “died” after taking a bullet while fighting Stefano (Joe Mascolo) on the DiMera villain’s island. Roman fell off a cliff, presumably to his death.

Back in Salem, Bo met with Marlena where they dealt with the fact that Roman’s body had apparently washed out to sea, robbing her of the chance to say goodbye to her husband. (But the missing “corpse” set up Roman’s return in 1991!)

While Dove is a John (Drake Hogestyn)/Marlena devotee today, she was team Roman and Marlena back in the day. “I watched Roman die after falling off the cliff,” Julie Dove recalls. “My favorite story was when Marlena blamed Bo [for leaving Roman].

“The acting in that storyline made me realize that she’s just one of the greatest actresses I’ve ever seen,” Dove raves of Hall. The actress’s fellow performers agreed. Hall was nominated the following year for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Daytime Emmys.