Kate Roberts is a fictional character from Days of Our Lives, an American soap opera on the NBC network. The matriarch of the series' Roberts family, the role was originated by Deborah Adair in 1993, and is currently played by (and most associated with) Lauren Koslow, who has held the role since 1996. Kate is the mother of Austin Reed, Billie Reed, Lucas Horton, Philip Kiriakis, and the twins Cassie and Rex Brady. Kate is the ex-wife of Curtis Reed, Victor Kiriakis, Roman Brady and Stefano DiMera, and is the widow of André DiMera. She is known for getting what she wants via scheming.
Character conception
Casting
The character was created by Days of Our Lives head writer Sheri Anderson, and first portrayed by actress Deborah Adair in 1993. Adair exited the role on April 20, 1995, when she retired from acting. The character was reintroduced in 1996 under the pen of head writer James E. Reilly, and played by Lauren Koslow, who had previously starred on The Bold and the Beautiful. Other to audition for the role included Lois Chiles and Janice Lynde, both of whom Koslow auditioned with.
Anderson, who wrote for Adair, said in an interview in 2011 that Reilly put a bit of a different spin on the character of Kate to Anderson's initial conception.
Characterization
Kate's primary role within the narrative is that of a femme-fatale and villainess. She is portrayed as a stoic, aggressive and family-oriented woman who is generally loving and supportive, but often interferes in her friends and relatives lives through any means she thinks necessary. When Kate arrives in Salem (the town where the soap opera is set) in 1993 she is single, with one adult son, Lucas Roberts. As the story develops it is revealed that Kate has lived in Salem before, where she was married with two children; but when Kate got pregnant with Lucas by another man (Dr Bill Horton), her husband kicked her out, and vanished with their two children, faking their deaths. In the storyline, Kate discovers her elder children (Austin Reed and Billie Reed) are alive and living in Salem and she is reunited with them.
Some sources confuse Kate Roberts with 1970s Days of Our Lives character Dr Kate Winograd (played by Elaine Princi), who was Head of Anesthesiology at Salem University Hospital, and who had a friendship and attraction with her colleague Bill Horton in Days of Our Lives episodes broadcast from 1977 to 1979. However, the broadcast story of Dr Kate Winograd and the backstory of Kate Roberts are incompatibly different, and other sources, including Sony Pictures Television's official website, keep the two Kates as separate characters. Moreover, Days headwriter Sheri Anderson stated in 2011 that she "actually originally created the character of Kate" with her friend Deborah Adair initially playing her (in 1993); and actress Lauren Koslow showed no knowledge of Dr Kate Winograd in a 2015 interview with AfterBuzz TV.
Storylines
In February 1993, businesswoman Kate (Deborah Adair) arrives in Salem to work at Titan Publishing Company for Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston). It is revealed that Kate has lived in Salem before. She is friends with psychiatrist Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) and is a former patient of hers. Kate kept a journal back when she was Marlena's patient and Kate breaks in to the house she used to live in Salem trying to find it. At Titan, Kate is given a manuscript of a novel to consider for publication. When she reads it, she realizes it is her life story, plagiarized from her journal and blocks its publication.
Kate's son, Lucas Roberts (Bryan Dattilo) joins her in Salem, on a spring break from West Point Military Academy. When Kate meets Tom Horton and Alice Horton (Macdonald Carey and Frances Reid) Alice realizes Kate used to be a tenant in a house owned by her son, Bill Horton (now occupied by his daughter, Jennifer and her husband, Jack Deveraux, who found her journal and wrote the novel); Tom recognizes her as a former patient and an abused woman. Tom also remembers that he delivered her baby (Lucas). Kate wants the secrets about her past to remain hidden, but Lucas wants to know the identity of his father. Kate tells him that his father was "Alan Roberts" and given him a photo, but Lucas discovers that the photo is of a random stranger and that "Alan Roberts" does not exist. In response to Lucas's anger, Kate tells him she does not know his father's name. Kate informs a stunned Lucas that before he was born, she was married to an abusive man, with whom she had two children and she turned to Lucas's father for comfort. She cries when she tells him the children, his half-brother and half-sister, later died in a motor accident.