Digest pays tribute to DAYS legend John Clarke (ex-mickey).
John Clarke, who played DAYS’S Mickey Horton from the soap’s pilot episode in 1965 until his retirement in 2004, died on October 16 at the age of 88. The actor, who suffered a stroke in 2007 and has had declining health in the last few years, passed peacefully from complications of pneumonia. “It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of our dear friend and original cast member, John Clarke,” reads a statement from DAYS. “A beloved member of the Days of our Lives family, John will always hold a special place in our hearts and the hearts of our fans. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time.”
Clarke was born in South Bend, IN, on April 14, 1931, and frequently moved around as a child due to his father’s post in the Army. “I grew up with a father who was re-stationed about every year, so I was in a new school every year making new friends,” he recalled in the 1/27/98 issue of Digest. “Everyone said, ‘That must have been so bad,’ but in that situation, all the other kids were military brats, too, and they had the same problems. It was a great way to grow up. You had to work through situations that other kids didn’t have to bother with.”
After a stint at a school in Japan, Clarke returned to the States to get his master’s degree in acting and attended UCLA. “All during my master’s, I had an agent and did the nighttime episodic Westerns; I have quite a resumé of Westerns,” he said in the same interview. “I did THE FBI with Efrem Zimbalist. I did some films, then got a series called THE NEW BREED with Leslie Nielsen, who is one of my favorite actors. For a young guy with no heavy obligations to the world, this was a
wonderful way to go.” Clarke had roles in some classic films, too. “I did a small part in [It’s A] Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with Stanley Kramer, and he called me back for a very small part in Judgment at Nuremberg. I was the MP who takes Spencer Tracy down to see Burt Lancaster in the last scene. I had one line. I was there the day Spencer Tracy did his summation to the jury, and he did it in one take. It was eight pages of dialogue, but that’s the way he worked. He’s kind of my hero and my inspiration.”
When DAYS came calling in 1965, Clarke admitted that he wasn’t immediately on board. “I had just finished THE NEW BREED and I had saved up enough cash to get married,” he shared. “After I had been married for a while, my agent said, ‘How about this soap opera that’s coming up. Mac Carey [ex-tom] is going to head up the cast.’ I told him no. He called back and said, ‘Think about it; they’re asking for you by name.’ But I had a bad taste in my mouth from other daytime shows like DAY IN COURT. My agent talked me into giving it a shot, so I agreed to do the pilot. We did it and they liked me and tried to sign me to do more. I said, ‘Okay, I can handle it for a year,’ thinking it was going to be a temporary sort of thing .... I look back and think, ‘Why did I stay?’ but the Cordays [show owners/executive producers] were super people and the show was so well organized and Mac Carey and I hit it off; we were very close. I really enjoyed playing his son. That was the sort of family he engendered among us with Frances [Reid, ex-alice] and Ed Mallory [ex-bill]: It grew and became an extension of reality. To us it wasn’t acting; it was a real experience, and that kind of working is very rare in this business.”
On the personal side, Clarke and wife Patty raised three children, Joshua, Heidi and Melinda. Melinda appeared on DAYS as Faith from 1989-90. Josh works in the bioscience industry. Heidi passed in 1994 from a heart tumor.
“I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through the show, especially the
first four or five days of the show without him because he was such a rock for me,” says his longtime co-star Suzanne Rogers (Maggie). “He was just sort of like a big brother, an uncle — he was just there for me. He was very kind to me always. I think that for a young girl coming into an organization where there were people that were established and that had been there for years and I was the new girl on the block ... it was scary. He was a nice, soothing element for me.”
Clarke gave Rogers’s alter ego a nickname that stuck, she shares. “One day, he started calling me Red,” she recalls. “He said it one day and I said, ‘Oh, do that. That’s fun. I like that.’ So he’s the one that came up with that. It wasn’t really in the script. I felt that was an endearing thing for him to say.”
“I was introduced to the show as Mickey’s therapist when he was in the sanitarium,” notes Deidre Hall (Marlena). “It was pitching to the Yankees as Drake [Hogestyn, John] would say. It was coming into that group of the Horton family, especially John who was just a fierce professional and always prepared and always generous. He was supportive and kind and iconic. He was also a devoted family man, which is saying a lot in this business.”
Some Salem alums took to Twitter to pay homage to Clarke. “Rest in peace #Johnclark!” tweeted Wesley Eure, who played Mickey’s son, Michael, from 1974-81. “John was a great television dad when I played #Mikehorton on #Daysofourlives. In one scene I kept flinching when he was supposed to hit me so for the final take he hauled off and hit me really hard. I was reeling. He could not stop apologizing! Ooxx.” Alison Sweeney (ex-sami) tweeted, “I was so sorry to hear of the passing of John Clarke. He was such a talented actor, and as an original cast member of @nbcdays, he’s forever a part of the show’s rich history.” Maree Cheatham (ex-marie) posted, “I was very sorry to hear of John Clarke’s passing. He played my Horton big brother on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. I lift his family up into the healing light of love!” Christie Clark (exCarrie) tweeted, “RIP Mr. John Clarke. You were always kind to me. We shared our love for our family, @nbcdays, OC living and cool last names. Thanks for always having time to check in and connect. Big kisses to Mindy Clarke and family.” Wally Kurth (Justin) added, “As a fellow UCLA theater grad, we had a good start to our friendship. I didn’t work w him as much as I would have liked. Sadly. He was a pro and he will be missed. RIP John.” DAYS’S Creative Consultant Ryan Quan shared, “RIP original Days cast member John Clarke. His Mickey Horton was such an important part of the show’s history... an almost 40 year run. He’ll be missed.”
For the DAYS cast and crew, who lost Frank Parker (ex-shawn) and Peggy Mccay (ex-caroline) in late 2018, Rogers laments, “It’s hard to turn the page. Frank going and then Peggy and now John ... it’s hard because you see the core dwindling away.”