Most actors spend a lot of time looking for work. A movie wraps, a series folds, a play closes out its run.
But not James Reynolds.
Since 1981 the Kansas-born actor has played Abe Carver, once a cop and now the mayor of Salem, on the long-running NBC soap “Days Of Our Lives,” with short breaks for other projects. That’s almost as long as Susan Lucci played Erica Kane on “All My Children.” What’s really noteworthy about Reynolds’ tenure, though, is that he holds the record for an African-American actor playing the same character on television.
“I didn’t realize that daytime TV would be my mark in life. Here I am all these years later.” says Reynolds, 72. “There’s a great deal I like about it. We can do many aspects of acting. One day you’re in heavy drama, the next day you’re playing light comedy, then you’re doing action and hiding the bad guys. You can do it all within the bounds of one character that I’ve been able to craft in real time. It’s an extraordinary opportunity.”
When Reynolds joined the show, black actors were scarce on daytime. There was Al Freeman, Jr. on “One Life to Live” and Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams on “AMC.” Abe was written as a black character but Reynolds, who had just come off the cancelled 1979 CBS primetime series “Press Express,” says the producers were more concerned with his brain than his race.
“ ‘Can you memorize lines quickly?’ That was the only question they asked me,” Reynolds says. And he could. “I had a pile of scripts delivered to my home.”
Soaps were in their heyday in the ’80s and ’90s, with large ensemble casts on contract, an opportunity to make extra cash from personal appearances on weekends and a production schedule that allowed actors three preparations — blocking scenes, camera blocking and a full dress rehearsal — before the afternoon taping. One 42-minute episode was taped per day (as opposed to the eight-to-ten days allotted for a prime-time drama). “We shot the occasional Saturday. The first 15 years or so we shot a couple of times on Sunday,” Reynolds says.
The producers usually had two weeks of episodes in the can; now they have six months. Changing times and plunging ratings saw many award-winning soaps such as “All My Children” and “one Life to Live” put out to pasture — in 2011 — and Reynolds says that, today, “Days” runs at a more accelerated and budget-conscious pace (Reynolds took a pay cut). “Yesterday, we shot almost two complete shows. It’s shorter work days. There are demands on producers, actors and writers. The interesting thing is: It can be done,” he says. “If I asked the old me, ‘Can you carry it off? Can you shoot eight-and-a-half shows a week?’ In the old days, I was getting home at 10 p.m. or two in the morning. Now we rarely go to six p.m. We get the show done and you can’t tell the difference in the level of production or level of performance.”
“Days of Our Lives,” which debuted in 1965, is one of four soaps still on the air. (The others are “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” — both on CBS — and “General Hospital,” on ABC.) Reynolds credits head writer Ron Carlivati with keeping the show relevant, especially for developing a story tailor-made for Reynolds. Last year, Abe’s son, Theo (Kyler Pettis), was out and wearing a hoodie and was shot by a young white cop who was also dating Abe’s daughter. “In Abe’s grief he became very angry with the shooter and his family,” Reynolds says. “We took an issue that’s always in the news, and explored anger and grief and racism.”
Theo survived his injuries and Reynolds won a Daytime Emmy for Lead Actor — his first — but the actor, who has been married to Lissa Layng Reynolds since 1986, is proudest of the distinction he has earned among his fellow African-American actors for his longevity in the medium.
“It makes me feel good,” he says. “It makes me understand that there are a lot of actors who deserve that opportunity as well. Our show is definitely responding a great deal more to diversity than when I began. We are now reflecting America and I am proud of that.”
