Theater actor, ‘Days of Our Lives’ star James Reynolds speaking at K-State January 19 for Martin Luther King Jr. bust installation ceremony

Tuesday, January 16th, 2007

MANHATTAN — James Reynolds, a television and theater actor best known for playing Abe Carver on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” will speak at Kansas State University’s installation ceremony of the Martin Luther King Jr. bust.

The ceremony is at noon, Friday, Jan. 19, in the field house. The bust is being placed at the southeast corner of the building.

Reynolds, who grew up in Oskaloosa, has a one-man show, “I, Too, Am America,” which calls on the lives and writings of more than 50 African-Americans. The show has Reynolds interpreting poems from Langston Hughes, delivering Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech and providing views of slavery and the slave trade. With more than five-and-a-half hours of material to call on, Reynolds crafts a different performance for each audience.

Reynolds has played Abe Carver on the daytime drama “Days of Our Lives” for more than 22 years, making Carver the longest-running African-American character in television and Reynolds the only African-American actor to portray a single character for so many years. He earned an Emmy nomination for a stint on another daytime drama, “Generations,” in 1991 before returning to “Days.”

After graduating from high school, Reynolds left Kansas and joined the Marines, where he became a reporter for the service newspaper, The Windward Marine. He later served in Vietnam, reporting from the battlefield in addition to his combat duties. Upon returning to the United States, Reynolds enrolled at Washburn University in Topeka, where he majored in pre-law and journalism but caught the acting bug. He appeared in campus productions and worked with local theater groups in Topeka.

After traveling and working as an actor in San Francisco, he returned to Kansas for several years, writing on theater, film, dance and music for the Topeka Daily Capital. Today, Reynolds helps head Free State Productions, a film and TV production company based in Kansas. He shares a spot on the Kansas Historical Society’s list of famous Kansans alongside President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Amelia Earhart, Langston Hughes and others.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 and is filed under Events.