Peter Lind Hayes

Peter Lind Hayes, born Joseph Conrad Lind Jr. on June 25, 1915, in San Francisco, California, was an American entertainer whose career spanned vaudeville, film, television, radio, and Broadway. He died on April 21, 1998, in Las Vegas, Nevada, from vascular problems, at the age of 82.

Hayes was the son of Joseph Conrad Lind Sr., a railroad man and amateur singer, and Grace Hayes, a vaudeville entertainer born in 1895 and died in 1989. His father died when Hayes was two years old. He spent part of his early childhood attending parochial school in Cairo, Illinois, before relocating to New Rochelle, New York, where he continued his education. Hayes made his vaudeville debut alongside his mother at the age of six. In 1939, Grace Hayes sold jewelry and borrowed $8,000 to open the Grace Hayes Lodge in Los Angeles, where her son worked as a nightclub performer.

Hayes appeared in films throughout the 1930s and 1940s. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and took part in both the stage and film versions of Winged Victory, a drama that also appears among his Broadway credits. His Broadway career ran from 1943 to 1968 and included the comedy Who Was That Lady I Saw You With?, the musical Heaven on Earth, and Winners. In 1946, he opened at the Copacabana in New York, which led to an engagement with the Dinah Shore radio show.

Hayes married Mary Healy in 1940, and the two remained married until his death. The couple frequently performed together, starring in the 1941 film Zis Boom Bah alongside Grace Hayes and receiving top billing in the 1953 cult fantasy musical film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. In 1950, Hayes and Healy were the original singers of the Chevrolet jingle "See The U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet," a song Dinah Shore later recorded for Chevrolet beginning in 1952. Hayes also built a reputation as a performer of comic songs, recording several, including "Life Gets Tee-Jus, Don't It."

His television career was substantial in the 1950s and beyond. Hayes served as the designated substitute for Arthur Godfrey on both his CBS television and radio programs. He and Healy co-hosted or co-starred in several television series, including The Peter Lind Hayes Show from 1950 to 1951, Star of the Family from 1950 to 1952, and Peter Loves Mary from 1960 to 1961. The couple also appeared as occasional guests on the quiz programs To Tell the Truth, Password, and What's My Line?, and Hayes appeared on the pilot episode of The Match Game on December 5, 1962. In 1964, he played the lead role of Dr. Robert Stone, an absent-minded optical engineer and researcher, in the episode "Behold, Eck!" of the television series The Outer Limits.

Hayes and Healy lived on Columbia Island in New Rochelle along the Long Island Sound shore, from which they broadcast a weekday breakfast conversation program on New York radio station 710 WOR. In 1961, the couple co-authored a biography titled Twenty-Five Minutes from Broadway, a title drawn from the George M. Cohan musical Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, which was set in their community of New Rochelle.