The late actor approved of his character's death scene, which will air in an upcoming episode of the soap opera

“We were rolling the dice, because it’s difficult to tell a story of someone’s death or a character’s death while the actor is still alive; albeit [Drake] was fighting, like a tiger, a very difficult disease,” Corday told Soap Opera Digest. “And I made the choice to, ‘Okay, let’s tell the story.’”

Salem will soon be grieving the loss of its super-spy. Late Days of Our Lives legend Drake Hogestyn (John) gave the show the go-ahead to script the death of his on-screen character, EP Ken Corday told Soap Opera Digest in a new interview.

Co-star Stephen Nichols (Steve) told Soap Opera Digest that every single day since his passing, Hogestyn has been in the thoughts of everyone involved in creating DAYS. “Whenever he is mentioned, everybody’s in on the conversation because we all loved him so much,