Days of our Lives Writes James Reynolds's Parkinson's Into the Script

By Daniel Okafor

James Reynolds revealed on November 10, in an interview with Nischelle Turner on Entertainment Tonight, that he has Parkinson's disease — and that Days of our Lives has written the diagnosis into his storyline as Abe Carver. The soap has been down this road before. Sometimes the road ends well.

What does writing a diagnosis into a storyline mean?

It means the character and the actor share the same medical condition, scripts and all. Daytime calls it drawing from life. Reynolds joins a small but notable club of performers whose real ailments became plot.

The precedent dates back four decades. In 1983, complications from a blood clot forced Charita Bauer, who played Bauer matriarch Bert on Guiding Light, to have her leg amputated. The following year, the show dramatized the loss of Bert's limb and her adjustment to a prosthetic leg and a wheelchair.

Who else has carried a real illness on screen?

Suzanne Rogers, a Daytime Emmy winner who has played Maggie Horton on Days of our Lives since 1973, was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (an autoimmune disorder) in 1984. She granted the show permission to write the disease into Maggie's storyline — with one condition. As she told Soap Opera Digest in 2020:

"Please, if we're going to do this, let's make sure it has a good ending, because I intend to get well. I intend to beat this." She called it "a wonderful storyline." Rogers went into remission in 1995.

Guiding Light wrote out Michael Zaslow, the Daytime Emmy-winning actor behind Roger Thorpe, when he began experiencing difficulty speaking. He was eventually diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease). In 1998, One Life to Live invited him back to reprise David Renaldi, a role from the early 1980s — and wrote the ALS into the part. On screen, David communicated through a computerized device with ex Dorian (Robin Strasser) and daughter Cassie (Laura Koffman).

Maurice Benard was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 22. Thirteen years into his General Hospital run as mobster Sonny Corinthos, and six years after going public to lessen the stigma around the condition, he got the storyline: Sonny's mental health arc launched in 2005 and ended with the character's bipolar diagnosis in 2006. "That was a personal achievement of mine," Benard told Soap Opera Digest in 2010.

And in 2007, As the World Turns veteran Colleen Zenk was diagnosed with stage 2 oral cancer, undergoing radiation, multiple surgeries and the reconstruction of her tongue. In 2008, she and the show partnered with the Oral Cancer Foundation to craft a storyline in which her character, Barbara Ryan, battled the disease too.

Why the genre keeps doing it

Soaps air daily, which makes them unusually good at metabolizing real life — illness included — faster than any primetime drama could. The pattern is consistent: the actor discloses, the writers adapt, and the condition becomes text rather than secret. Reynolds's Abe Carver storyline now continues that tradition, with the audience knowing exactly what's real.