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 of the goodbye episodes that will air next spring. “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.

Days of Our Lives will say a more permanent goodbye to the late Drake Hogestyn’s character, John Black, with upcoming death and funeral scenes that the actor approved before he passed away. In a new interview with Soap Opera Digest,

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,