Soap Hub Performer of the Week for Days of our Lives: Susan Seaforth Hayes

Bombastic. That would be a perfect word to describe Julie Williams, and the acting style of her portrayer, Susan Seaforth Hayes – the recipient of Soap Hub’s Performer of the Week Award.

Susan Seaforth Hayes — Performer of the Week

Xander Kiriakis (Paul Telfer) would be moving into the Horton House over her dead body, declared Julie. Her family home was not a flophouse, nor was it a repository for Jack’s (Matthew Ashford) wayward offspring and his light-fingered friends.

Luckily for Xander, he was able to mollify Julie – and all it took was his considerable charms and his ability to sweet-talk Jack into reimbursing her the 200 dollars he owed for that pilfered bottle of rye whisky.

But come the next day, come the next faux pas. Xander thought he’d merely consumed a plate of store-bought doughnuts that was anyones for the taking. What he’d actually done, was gorge on the homemade treats Julie had prepared for Doug (Bill Hayes)…and Julie had no problem informing him of the fact.

For his crime, Julie wanted Xander to pack up his stuff. “You are OUT. OF. HERE,” she loudly and forcibly declared. When Xander sassed, Julie squared up to the hulking brute and wondered, “Are you trying to frighten me? You big wuss!”

And when he dared wonder who Alice The Champion Doughnut Maker Horton was, Julie literally (and quite comically) shook with rage and declared, “I wish I had that pot of boiling oil. I’d throw it all over you.”

Xander begged forgiveness, and offered to make restitution; Julie decided that he would clean the kitchen as punishment. And she also had some parting shots for him, both metaphorical – “Those doughnuts, they each weigh in at about 290 calories a piece…I’m beginning to notice a little potbelly already. You’re gonna hate being fat.” – and literal (see her punch to his supposedly expanding gut).

Julie’s next answered an SOS from Allie (Lindsay Arnold), and she arrived hoping that the young woman wanted to talk about anything other than doughnuts. But alas, that was all Allie, and her friend Chanel (Precious Way), had in mind.

The young women wanted Alice’s recipe so that they might replicate the dessert in their soon to open bakery…but they had to convince Julie to hand it over…and she wasn’t too thrilled at the thought of Chanel, the woman who’d married Xander and used poor Theo (Cameron Johnson), getting her hands on Alice’s prized possession.

A quick-thinking Allie leveraged her knowledge of a past incident involving the confectionary treats to loosen Julie’s hold, and successfully got what she wanted. But Julie parted with a warning. “I’ll deal with you later!”

It’s a fact that characters don’t come funnier – or more judgmental – than Julie…which the denizens of Salem came rightfully attest to. And they no longer make performers like Susan Seaforth  Hayes…more’s the pity. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes.