Drake Hogestyn—John Black On Days Of Our Lives—Dead At 70
photo via NBC
Absolutely gutted. Like many of you, I grew up with Drake Hogestyn as John Black (and as Roman Brady) on Days Of Our Lives, and because I didn’t know he had been ill, this is obviously a shock. Hogestyn was just 70 years old, and his family sent the below message via Days Of Our Lives, announcing that he passed today from pancreatic cancer:
Hogestyn is survived by his wife and four children, seven grandchildren and many other family members. More via Michael Fairman:
Days of our Lives executive producer Ken Corday shared these words, “This is a very difficult one for all of us. Hogey was the ultimate team player and there are not sufficient words to express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on our show, personally and professionally, was profound and will forever remain unmatched.”
Along with Deidre Hall (Marlena Evans), they created the leading couple of Days of our Lives known to their fans as “Jarlena” and they will go down in history as one of the all-time greatest and most popular on-screen duos of the soap opera genre.
An iconic moment between John (he still believed he was Roman at this point in the show) and Marlena in the clip below. May he rest in peace.
30 years. A love story. Timeless. Eternal. #days pic.twitter.com/qyBz1Kb7Dn
— Deidre Hall (@DeidreHall) August 20, 2021
From Kristian Alfonso (a.k.a. Hope Brady, a onetime love interest of John’s when she was “Princess Gina”):
View this post on Instagram
From Alison Sweeney, who played Drake’s daughter/stepdaughter Sami:
View this post on Instagram
And from Martha Madison, who played Drake’s daughter’s Belle:
View this post on Instagram
