DAYS OF OUR LIVES Steve Dempsey, Prop Master
What is the oldest prop you have in storage?
“The Horton ornaments that we have, some of them are coming back from the ’70s. I did send [the original] Tom, Alice, Addie and one other ornament to The Smithsonian. We had to replicate those, so we could still do our Christmas show.”
How specific are the instructions you get about what a prop should look like?
“I’m a detail freak. I’ll ask questions. I’ll do research online and bombard them with links of things. With the links and stuff, I get the direction of what they don’t want, so I can move away from that to something else. It makes my job easier that way. Once I’ve made all my purchases, then it’s up to me to construct it in my lab.”
Was there ever a prop you found out about and thought, “How am I going to deliver this?”
“When we did the [DAYS OF OUR LIVES: BEYOND SALEM], we had the peacock with the gems. I was ordering peacocks from all over the world — India, England. We found something that worked really good that we were able to modify.”
Did the peacocks arrive with jewels in them, or did you have to add them?
“It came preset with stones in the feathering of the bird itself. There were tiger’s eye stones that were on there from the base of the feather all the way out to the tip. We had to figure out what would be the best place to add our stones. We drilled holes into the feathers that were large enough to fit the stones that we set into it. One thing they requested is that once the jewels were in, they had to light up. Drilling the holes into it freed the back of it. We were able to rig LED lights covered with black tape, so they wouldn’t bleed out the back. When we were doing the scenes, I was hiding behind the wall with a little controller. As each of the lights came on in the final scene, I was using a dimmer board to turn up the intensity of the light on each LED.”
Where’s the furthest away you’ve ordered a prop from?
“India and Australia. I just had something shipped to me from Australia. I can’t say what it is, but it’s for a storyline that’s coming up.”
When there are handwritten notes or cards, whose handwriting is used?
“I pretty much handwrite all the letters and notes and things, using my art background and changing styles. If it’s a younger teenage girl, based on what I remember back in high school, I will loop it more or put a circle for a dot over the ‘i’s’. Little things.
Sometimes I’ll use all caps, just to change it around.”
What kinds of props are created in-house?
“I’ll make event tickets, all the legal documents, everything they’re signing, everything you see on laptops and tablets. I am creating the online Spectator, which is our newspaper. I get the text from the writers. Sometimes I take the photos, if I can’t get the image online or we don’t have it in stock. I’ll do a photo shoot, grab some photos to use, and put it all together. I use Photoshop when I make all those things. Incoming calls, if you see it on the phone, is an image that I make. If someone’s on a computer looking at a website, I’ll build a mock website with some hot spots on it that you can click on.”
Tell us about the cross gifted to Ben and Ciara by Julie to ward off Satan.
“That was a delivery thing. We ordered it, but it didn’t come in in time. I had to go to Photoshop and design something similar to what we had ordered. I printed it out on a clear vellum paper, took it over to the scenic department, and they were able to stick it onto the cross and paint over it to age it. That’s what we ended up using over the one we actually ordered from a customized prop place for crosses.”
Duke the bear became a major plot prop. Where did he come from?
“I’m looking at Duke right now. He’s sitting up on the shelf. My right arm, the assistant that I have, is my shopper. Her name is Caroline Hyndman. She found Duke and the outfit, and we ordered them. When we found out what was going to happen to poor Duke, we needed a backup and an extra set of clothing. Luckily we had ordered two of them.”
Where do you get the baked goods used for Sweet Bits?
“It depends on what they’re asking for. It would come from different bakeries around town. We order the bakery boxes in bulk. Then we print out labels and put them on the boxes. Sometimes we don’t put anything in the boxes but some weights.”
What actors come to mind as particularly adept at handling props?
“There are some who really like to use props. Galen [Gering, Rafe] was good with the bear. He and Ari [Zucker, Nicole] are both good using props. Everybody is pretty good using props. Some like them more than others. George Delhoyo [Orpheus], when he’s here, he loves props. If it’s not scripted, he’ll come up with a suggestion.”
Did you have to take any special measures with props during Covid?
“Yes, especially after we first came back. We had a lot more sanitation and cleaning protocols in place. We would use our fogger/sanitizer sprayer and spray the props, anything that’s not a food item, of course. My guys working on stage would wear latex gloves, shields and masks, handle the props and pass them on.”
You’re actually a second-generation GH prop master.
“Yes! I basically grew up at GH because my dad [Rob Markham] was the prop master. I took over in August of 2021.”
What’s your favorite part of the job?
“It’s so much fun walking through the prop room and seeing how all the props are organized. I love organizing. I just bingewatched GET ORGANIZED on Netflix and they worked on a house belonging to a Youtuber who does pranks and they were like, ‘How do we organize this fake blood?’ I was like, ‘Yes! This is my dayto-day issue!’ ”
Let’s get into some specific props featured on the show recently. What’s the backstory of the contraption Harmony uses to communicate with Ryan?
“That was made by [my predecessor] Kyle Bell. He looked up how locked-in patients communicate and then we made one out of plexiglass and put [alphabet] stickers on it.”
What about Maxie’s sonogram, which ended up quite prominent in story?
“I got that picture of a sonogram and then I had to figure out how to Photoshop the numbers and text on the back [for her patient ID]. When it came back into scripts months later, they said, ‘Matt, do you still have that sonogram?’ And I was like, ‘Yes!’ If it’s Maxie’s sonogram, we put it in Maxie’s box. So even though Brook Lynn had it last, I knew it would be in Maxie’s box.”
Whose handwriting is featured on handwritten props like notes or letters?
“My girlfriend does a lot of the writing. I’ll come home and say, ‘Hey, babe, can I get you a drink? Also, I need you to do me a favor. Esme is going to read a letter from Maggie and I need you to be Maggie.’ Or I’ll ask someone from the crew, ‘Hey, are you busy right now? Can you help me out?’ And once they do the handwriting, it’s, ‘Congratulations, you just got to be that person’s handwriting permanently!’ ”
Dominic Zamprogna (Dante) told me to ask you, “How often do you have to chase after actors when they walk off set with their badges?”
“Ha! I can’t even tell you the amount of times that people walk off with a badge or a cell phone. What happens is that they say, ‘Cut,’ and an actor is like, ‘I’m done for the day, I can get out of here.’ They walk off and my prop guys are like, ‘Wait, there were five people in that scene and each person had a cell phone. Where did everybody go?’ Sometimes we have to run after them, or I’ll come into Wardrobe in the morning and they’ll hand me a phone or a stick of gum that some
body had as a prop and forgot to return.”
Who is the best at remembering to return props?
“Becky [Herbst, Elizabeth]. She will always find the proper person and hand it to them, even if we’re not in her immediate vision. That really helps us out.”
Where do you source edible props?
“I can contact the head chef at the catering company for our building and say, ‘Hey, Spencer is eating a sandwich,’ and I’ll give him the details of what I need for it and pick it up on the day. I get the pastries for the Quartermaine kitchen at a nice local bakery. If a character is eating a sundae, I’ll go to the grocery store, buy all of the materials and then we sit there and try to make the sundae look as pretty as possible.”
What’s an example of a prop you would rent as opposed to buy or make inhouse?
“We have a lot of stunt props that we rent for fight scenes, like rubber bats or stunt knives that have blades that retract. I’ve had to rent Swedish license plates, European license plates. Those are definitely easier to rent than make. We use ISS, Independent Studio Services, which is the prop warehouse that most TV shows and film companies use. I was there the other day and I actually saw the ping-pong paddles that were used in Forrest Gump, which was so cool. I tried to rent a speargun recently for Britt to shoot and I couldn’t find one anywhere, so I had to make it. That was a cool project because I really had to think about, ‘What’s the best way to make this work, and to make sure it will be safe?’ I also made fake axes for the actors to throw at the ax-throwing range.”
I know you only have a few cell phones in rotation, and switch out the cases. How do you track which case belongs to which character?
“There’s writing on the inside of the case, so if you took the case off the phone you would see that inside it says, ‘Josslyn’ or whomever. We try to figure out in advance, ‘Okay, in item 33, this person has a cell phone and then they leave, so take that phone from this person and bring it to that person for item 35.’ ”
What happens to a character’s props when an actor leaves the show?
“In the prop room, there is a whole section of boxes that go back to 1994 or so that say ‘Jason Morgan, 1999’ and so on, and if the character is done, I take those boxes into storage. I’ve been going through a lot of those boxes, trying to scan [the contents] onto the computer so I have a digital copy and not just a physical one. What’s really cool is that a lot of these old props were made by my dad and I’m finding his old notes. I’ve even found some drawings from my childhood that had fallen into the boxes!”