Frances Reid, 95; played ‘Days of Our Lives’ matriarch

A spokeswoman for NBC, which broadcasts “Days of Our Lives,’’ confirmed the death.

Mrs. Reid, who had a long history in the theater and on television, took the role in “Days’’ somewhat reluctantly, she said, but agreed to it because roles of any kind for actresses were rare in middle age. She began with the show’s first episode in 1965 and stayed long enough in the role for Alice to become a great-great grandmother.

When the show was first broadcast on Nov. 8, 1965, Alice Horton was already a grandmother, and she and her husband, Tom, a doctor, were stellar citizens of the fictional town of Salem. They were lamenting the quietude because all five of their children were grown and had moved out of the house.

But quietude was never a characteristic of the Horton family for long, nor of Salem. In the episode, Alice’s granddaughter Julie was arrested for shoplifting.

Alice was known to “Days’’ aficionados for her spirited, loving nature, her sound counsel, her family values, her annual Christmas tree decorating party, and her homemade doughnuts. Over the years she was a homemaker, a hospital volunteer and board member, and the cofounder of a shelter for teenagers.

This good-citizen resume did not preclude her from taking part in some wacky plots, however. At one point she helped a man accused of a killing to escape from jail (her scheme involved drugged doughnuts) because she knew he was innocent. At another point she was presumed to have been killed by a serial killer - choked to death, also with doughnuts - only to be resurrected as a captive on a remote island.

At her death Mrs. Reid was still part of the “Days of Our Lives’’ cast, but she last appeared on the program in 2007. She was given a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.