General Hospital’s Kirsten Storms is still mourning her Days of our Lives TV Dad, Drake Hogestyn, saying, “I feel like it’s not real that he’s gone.”
After rocketing to TV fame as Zenon in Disney’s Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Kirsten Storms made the jump to daytime soaps and landed the coveted role of Belle Black, daughter of supercouple John Black (Drake Hogestyn) and Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) on Days of our Lives. She played Belle from 1999 to 2004 and earned the 2001 Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Child Actor.
Storms joined General Hospital in 2005 after the show decided to age up the legacy character Maxie Jones. Although she had left Days the year before, the show and her castmates remained in her heart. She recently opened up to TV Insider about her time there and the loss of TV Dad Drake Hogestyn.
She talked about joining the show, recalling, “That was a reality check for how hard actors work. I had come from doing single camera projects and the Disney stuff and was l thrown into 10, 20, scenes a day, really thick script per day situation, working with people who have been doing it for years and years.”
“Deidre Hall would not take any excuses, and I loved that.” She said of her Days TV Mom, “It was one of the best learning experiences I could have had at 14.”Although she was leaving Days to do another project, her feelings were complicated, “When I left Days, I had a lot of sad feelings about it, just because I had grown a family there. That was the longest time I had spent on a project, and everyone there was always so nice to me.”
One cast member she remained close to after leaving was Hogestyn due to dating his son Ben who worked on General Hospital as Lucas Jones. “I dated Drake’s son, Ben for a couple of years, and I got to spend a lot of time with Drake and his family,” Storms told the outlet.
Drake Hogestyn died of pancreatic cancer on September 28, 2024, one day before he would have turned 71. Storms shared that she still struggles with his death, “I think because I hadn’t seen him in a while, I feel like it’s not real that he’s gone.”
“He just was my favorite person there and a legend. So happy and always in a good mood. And prepared. He did his 100 percent best job always. I was really upset when I heard he had passed. But again, I don’t feel like that’s even set in for me, really.”
Storms feelings about the daytime legend echo so many who loved him, family, co-stars and fans. He truly left his mark on all who had the pleasure to know or be entertained by him.
