Q: I was stunned when on "Days of our Lives" Hope shot Stefano to death. I have only watched the show for a year. When I told a friend about the death she said, "Don't be too upset, Stefano always comes back." What did she mean? — Norma of Oak Brook, Ill.

A: Stefano has come back from the dead so many times he has been nicknamed "The Phoenix." Like the Phoenix he always rises from the ashes. But not this time. Ken Corday, the show's executive producer, has made it clear that anyone who died after September of this year would not return. So alas, finally Stefano is really, sincerely dead. Eleven times in the show's history, everyone, including the actor, thought Stefano was a goner.

Here are the ways the cruel, suave, opera-loving don has "died" (you can find further details of this list on Wikipedia):

—A stroke

—Car submerged in icy waters

—Shot

—Fire

—Cave collapsed

—Car exploded

—Drowned

—Plane exploded

—Tunnel collapsed

—Car crashed

—All the blood was sucked out of his body

—Stabbed

—Shot again

Joseph Mascolo, who played Stefano, expressed his frustration in an interview with Soap Opera Digest: "Every single thing that went wrong in Salem was Stefano's fault. Every single thing. He got blamed for everything. When Stefano got blamed for this business with Lexie's illness, I got very angry. Stefano and his daughter had an absolutely pure relationship. I adore Renee Jones (Lexie). When she came to my dressing room and said, 'I'm going to be leaving soon, and this is what is going to happen,' I said, 'Oh, no!'

"It was very difficult. The bottom line Stefano is will always be about family. So when they wrote that, I couldn't figure it out. In all honesty, Stefano nor EJ would have had wanted it that way. As a matter of fact when James Scott (EJ) saw the business that Elvis wasn't Stefano's son, we both went, 'No, that's wrong.' We didn't want it that way."

After one of his exits he went over to "The Bold and the Beautiful" and played Massimo, who is Ridge's biological father.

Mascolo is adept at taking on new personas and transformations. When Mascolo first arrived on the "Days" set he used a heavy Italian accent. For over a year almost everyone on the set thought he was from Italy. Ironically, not even Stefano could stop me from being a hair chameleon: I have a habit of changing my haircut and color all the time. The last time I saw Mascolo, he said. "Why do you do that? I forbid you to change anything." I have changed my hair color more times than Stefano has died.

To find out more about Lynda Hirsch and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Susanne Nilsson