Another one bites the dust in Salem: James Read has left Days of Our Lives.
His villainous character, Clyde Weston, was shot and killed in the December 11 episode by Catherina Greene (Susan Elena Matus) for all the hell he’s brought to her family.
“It’s been a fabulous run so far, only the soap gods know if it is meant to continue!” he tells Deadline. “I always think of Days as a family and have enjoyed every minute of working there since I started 10 years ago.”
Read first created the role in 2014 under writer Ken Corday, Greg Meng and Lisa de Cazotte. He was the estranged father of Ben Rogers and stepfather of Jordan Ridgeway. Read has played the troublemaker part on and off over the last decade.
Before his run on the Peacock/NBC sudser, Read worked as a journeyman actor in TV, with roles on such shows as Cheers, Trapper John M.D. the North & South miniseries franchise, Murder She Wrote, Profiler and 7th Heaven. The Gen X crowd should know him best for playing Elle’s dad in Legally Blonde.
In 2022, Read told Soap Opera Digest that “I don’t think anybody thought Clyde would be long for Salem.” He assumed it would be “a six-month thing. I was happy with that because I had never done daytime before, and I wasn’t sure I would like it. It was a way to get my feet wet and decide whether or not it appealed to me.”