Television was a nascent medium in 1949 when Bill Hayes made his debut on “Fireball Fun-For-All,” a zany comedy-variety series fronted by vaudeville comedians Ole Olsen and Chick Johnson.
The series only lasted three months, but that was long enough to set Hayes on the path to become a TV legend through his role as Doug Williams, a pillar of the venerable daytime series “Days of Our Lives” for more than five decades. Hayes, who died Jan. 12 at the age of 98, never forgot the invaluable training he learned from working in the early days of live TV.
“The cameras were huge and immovable back then,” Hayes told Variety in 2018 when he and Susan Seaforth Hayes, his wife of 49 years and longtime “Days” leading lady, were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy Awards. “They didn’t have the capability of zooming in or out. It was all live until...
The series only lasted three months, but that was long enough to set Hayes on the path to become a TV legend through his role as Doug Williams, a pillar of the venerable daytime series “Days of Our Lives” for more than five decades. Hayes, who died Jan. 12 at the age of 98, never forgot the invaluable training he learned from working in the early days of live TV.
“The cameras were huge and immovable back then,” Hayes told Variety in 2018 when he and Susan Seaforth Hayes, his wife of 49 years and longtime “Days” leading lady, were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy Awards. “They didn’t have the capability of zooming in or out. It was all live until...
- 1/14/2024
- by Michael Maloney
- Variety Film + TV
Bill Hayes, the actor and singer who with his real-life wife, Susan Seaforth Hayes, starred on NBC’s Days of Our Lives as the beloved first couple of daytime television, died Friday in Los Angeles, a rep from the show told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 98.
Before he was known as a soap opera legend, Hayes was a regular on Sid Caesar‘s famed live TV variety program Your Show of Shows, and in 1955 he had the No. 1 song in America, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”
He also partnered in a nightclub act with future Brady Bunch star Florence Henderson; they were known as “The Singing Sweethearts” and sang about Oldsmobiles on TV commercials, many of them performed live.
Hayes joined Days of Our Lives to play con artist/lounge singer Doug Williams in February 1970. Seaforth Hayes, who portrayed the spoiled heiress Julie Olsen Banning Anderson Williams, had joined the show 15 months earlier.
Before he was known as a soap opera legend, Hayes was a regular on Sid Caesar‘s famed live TV variety program Your Show of Shows, and in 1955 he had the No. 1 song in America, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”
He also partnered in a nightclub act with future Brady Bunch star Florence Henderson; they were known as “The Singing Sweethearts” and sang about Oldsmobiles on TV commercials, many of them performed live.
Hayes joined Days of Our Lives to play con artist/lounge singer Doug Williams in February 1970. Seaforth Hayes, who portrayed the spoiled heiress Julie Olsen Banning Anderson Williams, had joined the show 15 months earlier.
- 1/13/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
John Wayne had finally broken free of Poverty Row B-flicks as the lead of John Ford's classic Western "Stagecoach" when he jockeyed for the lead in the filmmaker's 1940 seafaring drama "The Long Voyage Home." Like "Stagecoach," this World War II-set yarn about a tramp steamer wending its way from the West Indies to Baltimore and then on to England is an ensemble work. It is also one of Ford's most formally considered features, bolstered by expressive cinematography from the great Gregg Toland (who was one year away from changing the filmmaking game forever alongside Orson Welles with "Citizen Kane").
Wayne had made his name on Westerns, and with World War II on the horizon — which would take some of his stiffest movie star competition, most notably James Stewart and Henry Fonda, out of the country for four years — he had an opportunity to become one of the biggest names in the industry.
Wayne had made his name on Westerns, and with World War II on the horizon — which would take some of his stiffest movie star competition, most notably James Stewart and Henry Fonda, out of the country for four years — he had an opportunity to become one of the biggest names in the industry.
- 1/4/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Mark Harrison May 19, 2017
From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...
If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.
Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...
From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...
If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.
Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...
- 5/3/2017
- Den of Geek
I was saddened to learn this morning that Betty Garrett, the great star of stage, screen, and TV, passed away yesterday at the age of 94 after suffering an aortic aneurysm.
Garrett was one of those rare people — like, say, Jack Valenti — who happened to be a witness to and/or participant in a remarkably high number of historic events of the 20th century. She was a member of Orson Welles’s famed Mercury Theatre company, and was with him on the night that he shook up America with his infamous radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” (1938); she was Frank Sinatra’s leading lady in two of the earliest great M-g-m musical-comedies, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1949) and “On the Town” (1949); her career was greatly hurt by the Hollywood Red Scare after her husband, the Oscar nominated actor Larry Parks, refused to name names before the House Committee...
Garrett was one of those rare people — like, say, Jack Valenti — who happened to be a witness to and/or participant in a remarkably high number of historic events of the 20th century. She was a member of Orson Welles’s famed Mercury Theatre company, and was with him on the night that he shook up America with his infamous radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” (1938); she was Frank Sinatra’s leading lady in two of the earliest great M-g-m musical-comedies, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1949) and “On the Town” (1949); her career was greatly hurt by the Hollywood Red Scare after her husband, the Oscar nominated actor Larry Parks, refused to name names before the House Committee...
- 2/13/2011
- by Scott Feinberg
- Scott Feinberg
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