On October 9, Days of Our Lives will air a special episode dedicated to Melissa Reeves, who is marking 40 years since her debut as Jennifer Horton Deveraux.

For Reeves, the tribute came as a complete surprise. “I was reading my script and thinking, ‘Oh, this is great. There are so many flashbacks. That means fewer lines to learn,’” she recalls. “And I’m flipping through the pages very quickly, scanning to see what I’m going to be doing, and then at the very last page, it says, ‘Final chyron screen. Happy Anniversary, Melissa Reeves. 40 years.’ I immediately texted Janet [Spellman Drucker, then-coexecutive producer] and was like, ‘Janet, I am crying. I had no idea that anyone was going to do this, and I’m just honored. I’m humbled, I’m blessed, and I’m grateful that I can watch my life in one show. I can’t even explain to you just how special that is.’”

Reeves’ road to Salem began in 1984, when she landed the role of Jade Perkins on a new NBC soap, Santa Barbara. At the time, the 17-year-old was training to be a dancer and dreaming about landing a role in Cats on Broadway, but she relocated to Los Angeles to be part of the launch.

By 1985, with the Perkins family being phased out, Reeves was thinking about a return to the East Coast when an audition for DAYS rerouted her path for good. Though familiar with soaps, Reeves had never seen an episode of the show. “I was an ABC fan,” she shares. “I would watch Ryan’s Hope, All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Edge of Night all day long when I was off from school. So, I had no clue who was on Days of Our Lives, and maybe that was better, because I walked in not knowing it or the characters, and it ended up being the greatest gift of my life.”

She remembers connecting early on with original cast member Frances Reid, who played her onscreen grandmother, Alice Horton. “I used to smoke cigarettes,” Reeves relays. “And people used to laugh about it because Frances did, too, so I would sit with her in her dressing room, and we would smoke cigarettes together. I had just turned 18, and I probably would have been in a lot of trouble if I still lived at home. But she would say, ‘Oh, honey, they’re calling us for our scenes. Come on. Put that out.’”

Reid wasn’t just a mentor; she set the tone for Reeves’ approach to the industry. “What I remember most in the beginning was just sitting with her in her dressing room and her teaching me everything about show business, about professionalism, being on time, knowing your lines, and when they call you, you jump and you get to stage,” she explains. “It was just such a great lesson in Hollywood. I would really listen to what everybody told me because I was still so green in the business.”

Another influential figure in her early years was MacDonald Carey (Tom Horton), who became an important presence on and off screen. “Mac and Frances were the dreamiest people. They literally were like my grandparents,” she shares. “I just adored them. I mean, Mac would give me different books to read all the time. He had me reading Gabriel Garcia Márquez. I didn’t even graduate high school, but I was like, ‘I’m gonna do it.’”

Playing Jennifer came naturally to Reeves at first. “My character was naughty,” she muses. “But it was no problem because I was right out of New Jersey. I was like, ‘She’s bad. I got it.’”

Her alter ego soon took a more wholesome turn, which Reeves found amusing. “I thought it was ridiculous,” she admits. “I was like, ‘Give me a break. There are no teenagers like this. This is dumb.’ I really scoffed at it, and it’s pretty funny, looking at my life now.”

John Paschal / jpistudios.com

A turning point came when Reeves was paired with Billy Warlock, who played Frankie Brady, and their characters’ romance became a fan favorite. “He was still so young but just knew everything about the entertainment industry,” she recalls. “He was so great. Billy and I have stayed friends over the years, and working with him was amazing because he was really such a pro, taught me so much, and is so real and such an honest guy.”

But it was her pairing with Matthew Ashford (Jack Deveraux) that changed everything. “Working with Matt was a whole different thing because he brought something totally different,” she says. “He committed to us not being the stereotypical, romantic couple, and I was like, ‘I’m just here to have fun. Great, let’s do it.’ And I’m glad I didn’t fight it because he made this whole thing work, and I give him credit for that.”

While Jack and Jennifer remain one of the most beloved supercouples in daytime history, Reeves didn’t grasp the scope of their impact at the time. “When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t even realize it because you’re working so much,” she explains. “There was no social media, so you only knew, ‘Okay, the ratings are good. That’s good.’ We did magazine covers and went on public appearances, which was great because would see that people loved our show, but without social media, we didn’t really know. But now looking back, I can actually enjoy it and think, ‘Wow, we were really part of this crazy phenomenon.’”

Of all the storylines over the years, the moments that stand out for Reeves are the ensemble adventures. “I always love the giant cast storylines where we’re all together doing perilous things, jumping in pools, driving cars off fake cliffs because that’s when everybody laughs the most,” she says. “In the old days, everybody had to be there at six o’clock in the morning, and there was something so fun about seeing everyone fresh out of bed, no makeup on. We’d go to dry block, and then we’d all go in our dressing room, take naps, and wake up for camera block. You were spending so much more time together, so you really were bonding as a family, which was really sweet.”

Gary Null / NBC / Everett Collection

Today, Reeves’ work schedule is a little lighter, but she appreciates the role that Jennifer continues to play in Salem. “I always thought it would be so nice to carry on Frances’ legacy of the Horton family, to be this matriarch who leads and watches over people and offers advice,” she shares. “And Susan Hayes [Julie Williams] is so sweet about it. She’s always rallying for Matt and me and every time I come into town, she always invites me over and cooks a meal. And she’s just so precious. I mean, these are people who have been in my life for 40 years.”

And as she thinks about the four decades that have passed, Reeves can’t help but marvel that she’s still a part of the canvas. “As an actor, you live contract to contract because you never think a job could possibly last this long,” she notes. “My dream was always to be a wife and a mom and now grandma, and this incredible career in television was like the icing on the cake. I couldn’t have really prayed for anything better.”

She credits executive producer Ken Corday for helping shape her life far beyond the screen. “He blessed my life and my family’s life,” Reeves concludes. “He has been the greatest boss in the world because he’s always said, ‘This is your home. The door is always open.’ I grew up in a very hard family, and family is all I’ve ever wanted. It makes me cry to think about it, but Days of Our Lives literally became my family.”

Days of Our Lives, Streaming on Peacock