Maggie Horton

Margaret "Maggie" Kiriakis (née Simmons; previously Horton) is a fictional character from the NBC Daytime soap opera Days of our Lives, a long-running serial drama about working class life in the fictional town of Salem. She has been portrayed by actress Suzanne Rogers continuously since 1973, though she left the show briefly in 1984 and 2003. One of the show's earliest characters, she was created by scriptwriter William J. Bell and producer Betty Corday as a romantic interest for original character Mickey Horton. Maggie, however, would become a much bigger part of the show in later years.

Maggie's storylines often focus on romance and family troubles. She is portrayed as a stoic, opinionated and family-oriented woman who is generally loving and supportive, but occasionally interferes in her friends' and relatives' lives. A prominent storyline in 1984 included Maggie discovering that she had Myasthenia Gravis, which mirrored Rogers' real-life struggles with the disease. In 2003, Maggie was "killed off" in a "whodunnit?" murder storyline involving a serial killer. Rogers returned to the show in 2004 after producer James E. Reilly decided to have all the murder victims, including Maggie, turn up alive on the island of Melaswen, or "New Salem" spelled backwards.

Maggie's most well-known relationship was her longtime marriage to Mickey Horton. The characters met during Rogers' first episode in 1973, when Maggie cared for him while living on a farm. Following a series of experiences together, the pair grew extremely close, and their bond became central to both characters until Mickey's onscreen death in 2010. For her work as Maggie, Rogers won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1979. The character has been described as a "legend" and a television icon. In 2011, Rogers celebrated 38 years on Days, with only two minor interruptions.