Robert Kelker-Kelly

Robert Kelker-Kelly died on October 3, 2026, at his home in St. Peters, Missouri, at the age of 62. The St. Peters Police Department said officers responded at about 8:16 p.m. to a report of an unconscious man who was not breathing. CPR was already in progress when police and paramedics arrived, but life-saving efforts were unsuccessful. Police said he had complained of chest pain shortly before becoming unresponsive, that there was nothing suspicious at the scene, and that the circumstances appeared consistent with a medical event. His body was released by the medical examiner to a local funeral home.

TMZ first reported his death on October 5, 2026, after the Missouri medical examiner confirmed the date. No official cause of death has been made public, and no funeral or memorial details have been announced. Variety, USA Today, Soap Opera Digest, Soap Central, Page Six and The Independent were among the outlets that remembered his work as Bo Brady, Sam Fowler and Stavros Cassadine.

Robert Kelker-Kelly was born on April 18, 1964, to Jonetta Kelker, a nurse, and Robert Kelly, a forensic pathologist. Most biographies and obituaries list Wichita, Kansas, as his birthplace. In a 2013 interview with We Love Soaps, however, he said he was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and lived there for about a year and a half before his father, who was in the Air Force, was stationed in Wichita Falls, Texas. He said that was the first place he was introduced to airplanes. The family then moved to Wichita, Kansas, where his father ran a practice with a friend, and Kelker-Kelly grew up there from about the age of three until he was 18 or 19. He had three sisters, one of whom later became an organic farmer in Kansas City, Kansas.

His parents divorced when he was seven, and he moved in with his father. At 11, when his father remarried, he moved back with his mother. Three months later his father died of a heart attack at the age of 42. Speaking to People magazine in 1995, he said simply, "I blamed myself."

Kelker-Kelly attended Wichita Collegiate School from 1977 to 1980, where he was active in theatre and played major roles including Rusty in "Guys and Dolls," Bill Sikes in "Oliver!" and Sir Lionel in "Camelot." He started acting in high school and, in his words, "got into Shakespeare," a passion that stayed with him. As an adult he collected 19th century editions of Shakespeare and wrote poetry.

He briefly attended the University of Kansas and drifted between several colleges without finishing a degree. "Unfortunately, everywhere I went, I brought me along," he told People. Wherever he went, he kept studying acting. He moved to Florida to do theatre, made a small film, and then followed a relationship to California, where he signed with the agent J. Michael Bloom, whose strategy was to launch actors in soap operas before moving them to prime time and film.

When Kelker-Kelly landed his first soap role, he was homeless in Los Angeles, sleeping in his Jeep or on friends' floors and working as a secretary at a recruiting firm. "ANOTHER WORLD was a godsend," he later said. He debuted as Sam Fowler on NBC's "Another World" on August 10, 1987, originating the role, and was immediately paired with socialite Amanda Cory (Sandra Ferguson) in a front-burner storyline shot partly on location in New York. Sam was the half-brother of Mitch Blake. He played the role until about 1990.

In 1992 he was chosen to take over Bo Brady on NBC's "Days of Our Lives," a role being vacated by its originator, Peter Reckell. Although he was a recast, fans embraced his Bo, whose romances with Billie Reed (Lisa Rinna) and Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso), along with a storyline opposite Crystal Chappell's Carly, gave him his widest audience. He appeared in nearly 600 episodes and described a punishing schedule of around 90 hours a week, rising at 3 a.m. to train before long studio days. "The guy's magnetic," Days co-executive producer Tom Langan told People in 1995. The show released him from his contract that year and Reckell returned to the role in August 1995.

In 1996 NBC brought him back to "Another World" in a new role, the race car driver Bobby Reno, who was later revealed to be Dr. Shane Roberts. He played the part until 1998. Outside daytime he guest starred on "Jack's Place" (1992), "Touched by an Angel" (1995, as Matt Duncan), "Maybe This Time" (1995) and "Rescue 77" (1999), and appeared in films and TV movies including "Dream for an Insomniac" (1996, as Trent), "Winter Heat" and "Mr. Write."

In 2001, while he was working as a mechanic in Massachusetts, "General Hospital" executive producer Jill Farren Phelps called him to audition for Stavros Cassadine, a villain long presumed dead. He took the role, which the actor John Martinuzzi had originated, and appeared in 2001 with guest spots in 2002 and 2003. He returned during the show's 50th anniversary in 2013, when a resurrected Stavros kidnapped Lulu and put her on ice, and again in 2014, when Stavros was shot and killed by Dante. In all he appeared in 42 episodes of "General Hospital."

After marrying Miriam Parrish in 1997, Kelker-Kelly left Los Angeles and stepped away from acting. He earned a certification in airframe and powerplant (A&P) mechanics and worked as an aircraft mechanic. From 2002 to 2003 he taught acting at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

He became a professional pilot in 2003 and was type rated on the Gulfstream IV, the Learjet 60 and Learjet 45, and the Cessna Citation V and Citation I. In 2013 he told We Love Soaps, "I'm a charter pilot. I fly Lear jets, Lear 60s, for a company out of Spirit of St. Louis airport in St. Louis, Missouri. I also instruct on the side because I like to teach." He also continued to coach actors privately. Variety reported that he was still teaching and flying up until his death.

In 1988 Kelker-Kelly married Linda Rattner, a production assistant on "Another World." He later told People that unresolved grief from childhood and unhappiness in his work had led him to drink and use drugs heavily, and that he left "Another World" to enter rehab. He and Rattner divorced amicably in 1992. By 1995 he was living alone in Studio City, California, writing poetry, collecting old editions of Shakespeare and, fittingly for a future pilot, playing flight simulation games on his computer.

In 1997 he married actress Miriam Parrish, his former "Days of Our Lives" co-star. They divorced in 2011, and Soap Opera Digest reported that he never remarried. He had one child, whose name has not been made public; in 2013 he summed up his life in the Midwest by saying, "And I'm a dad." He lived in the St. Louis area of Missouri in his later years, and Soap Central noted that he did not appear to have a social media presence.

Kelker-Kelly was frank about the limits and pressures of daytime television. In 1995 he told People that "a soap is not about artistry." Years later he told We Love Soaps that he preferred strong characters and human stories to supernatural twists: "I'm one of those old soap people who believes if you have good characters and good stories you don't have to resort to demons and evil twins, not that I'm complaining about playing a guy brought back from the dead many times."

He was a self-described history buff who said he would turn the historic NBC studio in Brooklyn where "Another World" was taped into a museum if he had the money. He spoke warmly of veteran colleagues such as Douglass Watson, with whom he played Shakespeare trivia between scenes, and Constance Ford, and he said that "General Hospital" was the best experience he ever had on any soap.

Kelker-Kelly is remembered above all for doing what soap fans often consider impossible: replacing an iconic actor in an iconic role and winning the audience over. His Bo Brady, opposite Lisa Rinna's Billie, became one of the most popular pairings of early 1990s daytime and earned the two of them the Soap Opera Digest Award for Hottest Soap Couple. In tributes after his death, Soap Central said he "did the impossible" by stepping into the role after Peter Reckell, and fans online wrote that he had made Bo his own and was also memorable as Stavros Cassadine.

His life after acting, as a mechanic, charter pilot, flight instructor and acting teacher, made him an unusual figure among soap stars, one who walked away from fame by choice and built a quieter life in the Midwest.

Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Lead Actor (1994) for his portrayal of Bo Brady on "Days of Our Lives."

Soap Opera Digest Award for Hottest Soap Couple (1995), shared with Lisa Rinna for Bo and Billie on "Days of Our Lives."

Kelker-Kelly's working relationship with Lisa Rinna was famously difficult. In 2015 Rinna told Bravo that the two had hated each other, adding that their volatile combination looked like chemistry on camera. In 2026, in her memoir "You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It," she went further, alleging that he "made my life a living hell on the set of DAYS," that he was verbally abusive, passive aggressive and manipulative, and that after he abruptly left the show NBC provided her and Kristian Alfonso with security for about three weeks. Kelker-Kelly did not publicly respond to the allegations before his death.

In his own 2013 interview he recalled that when he returned to "Another World" in 1996, executive producer Jill Farren Phelps told him she had heard bad things about him and that he should behave. He said the two later became good friends.