Kayla Brady Johnson is a fictional character from Days of Our Lives, a soap opera on the NBC network.

Mary Beth Evans returned to Days of Our Lives for a short-stint on June 18, 2010, and then again on recurring status starting in December 2011.

[6] Kayla is first introduced to the show in 1982 as Roman Brady's younger sister and a nurse who works at University Hospital.

Kayla returns to Salem in 1986 with Mary Beth Evans in the role after Steve Johnson is hired to scare her away from Cleveland.

Accepting a job offer from Tom Horton, Kayla establishes a low income clinic on the riverfront and continues to cross paths with Steve.

[7] The two help orphans Max and Frankie find a home with Kayla's parents, and later go on the run together when Steve's former paramour Britta Englund is killed.

[7] In 1987, Kayla helps Adrienne Johnson find work at the Emergency Center, not knowing she is actually Steve's long lost sister.

Steve knows how happy Kayla makes a dying Jack, who is secretly another sibling whom Jo Johnson had placed up for adoption.

After their marriage, Steve and Kayla almost adopt a young deaf boy named Benji, who is eventually found to be Stefano DiMera's son.

In an old trunk in the mansion's attic, Steve and Kayla find an old civil war diary and spend time reliving the love story of Emily and Gideon.

Steve agrees to undergo plastic surgery to fix his eye, in order to infiltrate the preacher's camp for the ISA as Daniel Lucas.

Marina and Steve travel to Italy to retrieve the key, where Kayla catches them in an apparently compromising situation.

Upon hearing of Stephanie's kidnapping, Kayla escapes from prison, and she and Steve follow Sheila to Australia where they manage to get their baby back.

Things become complicated when Kim returns to town in 1991 to find her sister and ex-husband living together, and circumstances lead her to become involved with Lawrence Alamain.

In 2006, Kayla, now a doctor, returns to Salem for Frankie and Jennifer's wedding, having completed medical school in Los Angeles.

A series of events, including their daughter's race car crash and a stay in quarantine after being exposed to a toxin at the hospital, help slowly bring them back together.

Due to Steve's programming, Kayla is forced into removing John Black's kidney so an ailing Stefano can have it.

When his programming is again activated by EJ in order to have him kill Bo on Tinda Lau, Kayla is finally able to break through to him, and they spend some time on the island recovering.

Kayla and Steve are both caught in the plane crash on the way back to Salem, which kills her father Shawn Brady and is later found to be the work of a deranged Ava Vitali.

In early 2009, Kayla is accidentally shot by Hope at University Hospital, a situation Bo has foreseen in his psychic visions.

Offscreen, Kayla and Steve decide to leave Salem to run a clinic in a remote part of the world.

They take their infant son with them, and relay their decision and details of their situation to their daughter Stephanie in a letter, in April 2009.

[8] In 2020, Charlie Mason from Soaps She Knows placed Kayla at #30 on their list of the 35 most memorable characters from Days of Our Lives, saying that "See that butter-would’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression Mary Beth Evans’ Salem sweetheart is wearing here?