Bill Hayes

William Foster Hayes III was born on June 5, 1925, in Harvey, Illinois, and died on January 12, 2024, in Studio City, Los Angeles, at the age of 98. He built a career spanning Broadway, recording, television, and film across more than seven decades, earning recognition as both a performer and a recording artist.

Hayes attended Whittier Grade School and Thornton Township High School before enrolling at DePauw University in 1943. In March of that year, during his freshman semester, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Air Corps and received his orders to report for active duty on July 1, 1943 — the date of his eighteenth birthday. He spent the following 27 months training as a fighter pilot and was within two weeks of receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Air Corps, with orders to fly an F8F off a carrier, when World War II ended. He was awarded the American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. Choosing civilian life over reenlistment, Hayes spent five weeks hitchhiking across the Midwest before returning to DePauw, where he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and graduated in June 1947 with a dual major in Music and English. He subsequently earned a master's degree in music from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in education from West Virginia University.

His professional performing career began in the late 1940s. In the early 1950s he worked as a singer on the Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca variety program Your Show of Shows, and in 1952 he appeared in a supporting role in the black comedy film Stop, You're Killing Me. His Broadway career began in 1953, when he starred in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet, and he remained active on Broadway through 1967, with credits that also include the musical Bye Bye Birdie and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

In 1955, Hayes achieved his greatest commercial success as a recording artist when his version of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" reached number one on the Billboard charts, where it remained for five weeks. The recording sold over two million copies and earned a gold disc. Although three versions of the song appeared in the top 30 simultaneously during the Davy Crockett craze of that year, Hayes's recording was the most popular. He had additional chart entries in the 1950s, including "The Berry Tree," a cover of "High Noon," and "Wringle, Wrangle," which reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957.

In the late 1960s Hayes shifted his focus toward dramatic acting. In 1970 he originated the role of Doug Williams on NBC's Days of Our Lives, entering the series as a convict who was also a lounge singer. The character became a long-running fixture of the program, with Hayes appearing in the role across multiple periods: 1970 through 1984, again in 1986 and 1987, in 1993 and 1996, and continuously from 1999 onward. The character was written out in the spring of 2004 — killed by Dr. Marlena Evans in a storyline devised by head writer James E. Reilly — before being revealed alive on a tropical island and returned to the show. Hayes's final appearance as Doug Williams was streamed posthumously on Peacock on July 11, 2024. His performance earned him Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series in both 1975 and 1976, and he received the Soapy Award for Actor of the Year in 1977, along with multiple Daytime TV Magazine and Afternoon TV Magazine reader poll wins for Best Actor and Photoplay Magazine Gold Medal Awards for Favorite Daytime Male Star in 1977 and 1978.

On Days of Our Lives, Hayes co-starred with Susan Seaforth Hayes, whom he married in 1974. Their on-screen pairing attracted wide public attention, and in 1976 the couple appeared on the cover of Time magazine, a distinction no other soap opera stars had achieved at that time. In 2005 they co-authored the autobiography Like Sands Through the Hourglass. Hayes had previously been married to Mary Hobbs from 1947 to 1969; they had five children together.

Beyond his Broadway and soap opera work, Hayes maintained an active television presence throughout his career. His credits include the role of Colonel Fairfax in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Yeoman of the Guard in 1957, Bill Calhoun/Lucentio in a 1958 television production of Kiss Me Kate, the Minstrel in a 1964 television special of Once Upon a Mattress, and a guest appearance on Frasier in 2002. He also appeared in the 1964 film The Cardinal and the 2013 television film Miracle at Gate 213. In 2017, a documentary about his life titled World by the Tail was released online, and on June 27 of that year he was featured in an impromptu interview on a web special for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In 2016, the National Association of Teachers of Singing established the Bill Hayes Prize in Musical Theater in his honor. On April 29, 2018, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences presented Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.