Deborah Adair was born on May 23, 1952, in Lynchburg, Virginia, to a Navy officer father and a Spanish teacher mother. She was raised alongside her brother Ashley and sister Ann. Adair's mother and grandmother instilled in her a sense of confidence and self-assurance, telling her she could have any job she wanted.
Adair earned a degree in advertising and marketing from the University of Washington, and later worked as a copywriter, commercial producer, and assistant promotion manager for radio stations in Seattle. Her marriage to Gary Baker, a budding politician, ended in 1978, prompting her to move to Hollywood. She worked as a waitress and stewardess for a short time before pursuing a career in voice-over work and local stage productions.
Adair's big break came in 1980 when she was cast as Jill Foster Abbott on The Young and the Restless. She played the character as a beautiful, sparkly bad girl, and left the show in 1983 to accept the role of Tracy Kendall on the highly rated nighttime soap opera Dynasty. Her performance impressed producer Aaron Spelling, who took her off Dynasty a year later and gave her the lead role of Daisy Lloyd on the prime-time show Finder of Lost Loves.
After Finder of Lost Loves was canceled, Adair guest-starred on other shows, including Spelling's The Love Boat and Hotel. In 1986, she reprised her role as Jill on The Young and the Restless for one week, but her return was met with tension on the set. The role was later taken over by Jess Walton.
Adair married producer Chip Hayes in 1987, and although the marriage was happy, she struggled with infertility and felt unhappy about not being able to have children. In 1990, she was involved in a freak accident that caused her to herniate a disk, leaving her in excruciating pain and forcing her to spend a year in bed.
After recovering, Adair picked up the pieces of her career and moved on to do a TV movie for Aaron Spelling, titled Rich Men, Single Women. She also landed the recurring role of Lucy Cabot on Spelling's prime-time show Melrose Place, where she worked alongside her husband, who was a producer on the show.
In 1992, Adair originated the role of Kate Roberts on Days of Our Lives, and became one of the few actors in history to have both a daytime soap opera and a nighttime soap opera at the same time. She left Melrose Place after one year to focus on her role on Days of Our Lives, and won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the Soap Opera Digest Awards in 1994.
In 1995, Adair left her role on Days of Our Lives to become a full-time mom after she and her husband adopted a child. Although Lauren Koslow took over the role and played it for more than 15 years, Adair's fans cannot seem to forget her and hope she will return to acting. However, Adair seems content with her home life in Virginia and has not expressed any desire to return to acting.
