‘Days of Our Lives’ star was 98 years old – The Hollywood Reporter

Bill Hayes, the actor and singer who met his real-life wife, Susan Seaforth Hayes, starred in the NBC series Days of our lives The two beloved lead actors of a daytime television show died Friday in Los Angeles, a rep for the show said Hollywood Reporter. It was 98.

Before he was known as a soap opera legend, Hayes was a regular on Sid Caesar’s popular live television variety show Your offer of offersIn 1955 he had the No. 1 song in America, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”

He also participated in a nightclub act with Al-Mustaqbal TIMEIDEN Star Florence Henderson; They were known as the “Singing Sweethearts” and they sang about it Oldsmobile In television commercials, many of them were performed live.

Hayes joined Days of our lives To play con artist/lounge singer Doug Williams in February 1970. Seaforth Hayes, who portrayed spoiled heiress Julie Olsen Banning Anderson-Williams, joined the show 15 months ago.

The actors married on October 12, 1974, and then their characters married (the first of three times!) in an episode that aired on October 1, 1976. They repeated their actual wedding vows in their inaugural televised ceremony.

“In 1974, Susan and I were married in my living room with 16 people,” Hayes once said. “In 1976, when Doug and Julie got married, we had 16 million people.”

Quite naturally, the televised wedding would come after Doug married Julie’s mother (Patricia Barry), who died a tragic death, with whom he had a daughter (who would be Julie’s half-sister).

He and Seaforth Hayes made history when he became the only soap star to grace the front page time magazine. The cover line in the January 12, 1976 edition is: “Soap operas: sex and suffering in the afternoon.”

Doug and Julie “went on a cruise” and left the town of Salem while the actors left Days of our lives following a dispute over storylines in 1984. They spent the next several decades on and off the show ever since, and viewers were always happy to see them back. The pair even landed on Peacock when the show moved there in September 2022.

In a 2011 interview with TV guide, Seaforth Hayes described her husband — who is 18 years her senior — as “a true lover of life, and he taught me to have a broader horizon, which I think is probably the key to us remaining so happy seeing each other 24 hours a day.” “.

They received the Daytime Lifetime Achievement Award Amy In April 2018.

“I’ve known Bill most of my life, and he was the heart and soul of my family Days of our livesThe show’s executive producer, Ken Corday, said in a statement. “Although we mourn and miss him, Bill’s indelible legacy will live on in our hearts and the stories we tell, both on screen and off.”

William Foster Hayes III, one of the three children of a World Book Encyclopedia salesman and a homemaker, was born on June 5, 1925 in Harvey, Illinois. He attended Thornton Township High School and played violin and sang in the school band.

After enlisting and serving for two years in the Naval Air Corps, where he trained to become a fighter pilot, Hayes graduated from Dibao University, specializing in English and music in 1947.

When his younger brother got strep throat and was unable to audition for a role in the national touring production of Rodgers and Hammerstein circular – After his amazing Broadway career ended – Hayes hopped on a train to Chicago and auditioned for his place in Schubert stage. He got a job that paid $70 a week for about four months.

In the summer of 1949, while working on his master’s degree at Northwestern University, a fresh-faced Hayes landed another singing and acting gig with a vaudeville-style production, FonzapopinHeaded by the famous comedy team Ollie Olsen and Chick Johnson.

The duo was quickly hired Top line A live variety show that served as a 13-week summer alternative to Milton Berle’s hugely popular show Texaco Star stage At NBC, they brought Hayes with them.

This in turn led to a five-year residency as an original performer on NBC Your offer of offersWhere Hayes collaborated with the likes of Imogen Coca, Mel Brooks and Karl Reiner And singing partner Jodi Johnson.

Around this time, Hayes starred in another Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, Me and Julietappears with Ray And sixtyShirley Jones and Shirley McLeanHe played the role of Margaret Dumont’s son in the comedy film Stop, you’re killing me (1952).

“The Ballad of Davy Crockett” was first heard in the first episode of the ABC hit Disneyland in October 1954. Hayes recorded his version two months later, in one take, and it went on to sell over 4 million copies. (Fess Parker and Tennessee Ernie Ford also released renditions that year.)

Hayes then spent the next part of his career performing on stages throughout the United States, touring with the national production of Bye Birdie for a year.

When his agents informed him of a vacancy Days of our livesHayes wasn’t jumping for joy. “Soap opera actor is a bad actor, soap opera writing is bad writing, and soap opera everything was bad,” he said in the wonderful documentary about his life, The world of the tail (2017). “I had something to learn about that.”

He joined the series shortly after the end of his 23-year marriage to Mary Hobbs, and had custody of three of their five children. Seaforth Meanwhile, Hayes was engaged to Los Angeles broadcaster Hall Fishman.

“Bill’s house was like a zoo.” His wife He recalls an early encounter with the Hayes family in a 1981 story for the people magazine. “He didn’t have a nickel, the kids were out of control, living on pizza. It was an estranged family. I thought he needed help.”

After he and Seaforth Hayes had the first scene in the show, Days of our lives Head writer William Bell “saw something going on between our eyes and said, ‘Hey, I think I’ll write them another scene,'” Hayes said in his documentary. “He wrote some great scenes for us after a while.”

when Days of our lives Co-star MacDonald-Carey introduced them to each other, and Seaforth said, “I tried not to drool because I bought his records,” she recalled in 2022. “I saw him on… Your offer of offersAnd I saw him on the national tour Bye Birdie. It was the most adorable thing, the sexiest thing, and then it turned out to be very nice.

They kissed for the first time (on the show and in real life) on July 23, 1970.

After the daytime soap expanded to one hour in 1975, Hayes was given additional singing time when his character opened his own nightclub, Doug’s Place. He often performed the song “The Look of Love” which was Doug and Julie’s theme.

In 2004, Doug was stabbed to death in a cemetery brawl with the Bonkers’ psychiatrist. Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall), but no, he was alive, and somehow later turned up on a tropical island.

Hayes also appeared in the film Otto Preminger cardinal (1963) and with Carol Burnett in a 1964 CBS adaptation of her Broadway hit, Once upon a time on a bedAnd he guest starred in shows such as Trainees, Matlock And Freezer.

For years, he and the former Hogan Heroes And Days of our lives Actor Robert Clary had lunch almost every Thursday. (Clarry character, Robert LeClair(He served as best man for Doug and Julie at their first TV wedding.)

Hayes and his wife published a joint autobiography, Like sand through an hourglass, in 2005; He co-authored a book of historical fiction, trumpet, In 2012; She launched a website, Soapoperasecrets.com, in 2021.

In addition to Seaforth Hayes, survivors include their five children, 12 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

Carly Thomas contributed to this report.