Hall of Fame: Bill Hayes

Bill Hayes

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Doug Williams, Days of Our Lives
• Byron Carmichael, Days of Our Lives

Bill Hayes was born William Foster Hayes III on June 5, 1925 in Harvey, Illinois. He grew up throughout the Midwest. His father was an encyclopedia salesman for 41 years. He got his talent from his dad who enjoyed singing and local community theater performing on the sly.

Hayes entered WWII as a naval airman, then studied at De Pauw University, where he met and married first wife Mary Hobbs. They married in 1947. The marriage ended in divorce in 1969. They went on to have five children. He later received his master's degree at Northwestern.

Blessed with a sturdy tenor, his interest in a professional career was piqued after happening upon a tour of Carousel in 1947. From singing telegrams to singing at Irish wakes to singing as a cantor in a synagogue to singing in barbershop quartets to choir directing to jazz group vocals, Hayes persevered musically until earning his first big break on TV. A lead singing/stooge role in Olsen & Johnson's zany burlesque revue Funzapoppin' in 1949 led to him joining the pair on their short-lived TV show. This led to his biggest break. Hayes was a singer on the Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca variety show Your Show of Shows from 1950 to 1953.

In the meantime he also performed in vaudeville and broke into films with a supporting role in Stop, You're Killing Me (1952). Despite a wife and family to support, he left Your Show of Shows on his own volition in 1953 for the chance to star in a new Broadway musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet which opened with moderate success in 1953 and lasted over a year, touring with the show in its aftermath.

During the Davy Crockett craze in 1955, three recorded versions of the Ballad of Davy Crockett were in the top 30. Hayes' version was the most popular, reaching #1 on the Billboard charts, selling over three million copies, and reaching #3 for the year. He had other small hits in the 1950's including The Berry Tree and covers of High Noon and Wringle, Wrangle.

A nightclub and TV-variety fixture in the late 1950s. In 1959, he co-starred with Florence Henderson in Oldsmobile Musical Theatre, a short-lived, experimental TV series that integrated dama and song in live half-hour stories.

He later managed to flex his vocal chords in such musicals as Bye Bye Birdie (national tour during the 1961-1962 season), Brigadoon, The Pajama Game and George M! He played a major role in the Otto Preminger film version of The Cardinal in 1963.

The 1960s were a slow, difficult time for Hayes professionally and personally, which culminated in the breakup of his marriage. Hayes scrambled to find a steady job to support his five children, who were all left in his care after the divorce.

Luck and talent played a part when he was hired to join the cast of Days of Our Lives playing the role of Doug Williams. The character was originally a louse and con artist, paid to seduce Julie Olson, but grew more reputable after his character fell in love with the feisty troublemaker Julie, played by Susan Seaforth. Throughout the 70s and a good part of the 80s, Bill and Susan reigned as the Lunt and Fontanne of daytime soaps earning them the title "the first couple of daytime". Doug's partnership with Julie is widely considered by many critics and fans to be the first supercoupling on the American daytime serials despite the equally or similarly popular couplings of the likes of Jeff and Penny on As The World Turns or Steve and Alice on Another World that preceded them.

They were both almost permanent fixtures on the popular Daytime TV magazine reader's poll. In the yearly awards given by the magazine Hayes won Best Actor of the Year for 1973, 1976 and 1977. His partner won the Best Actress title in 1976 and 1977.

Doug and Julie, along with writer Pat Falken Smith, are generally credited with Days of Our Lives popular and critical success of the early to mid 1970s.

Off-screen the couple also ignited sparks and, despite their major age difference (she is 18 years his junior), they married on October 12, 1974.

Hayes originally played the role from 1970 to 1984. His singing career also found its way into his storyline; in the story, Doug was introduced as a convict who was also a lounge singer.

While continuing in the soap role, Hayes worked in cabaret, continued to record albums, wrote a column in Soap Opera Digest, created a soap opera student workshop, and worked on the development of serial spin-off of Days of Our Lives.

In 1984, after 14 years, the cover of Time magazine, two daytime Emmy nominations, he and Susan chose not to renew their contracts with Days mostly over disagreement with storyline direction for Doug and Julie. Also due to the fact that it was felt by the current powers that be that the once pivotal characters were not needed and wanted to relegate them to permanent supporting status. Focus was now on Doug's daughter Hope and her onscreen beau, Bo Brady. The powers that be wanted to make Doug & Julie the heavy's in the story, completely ignoring that with all Doug & Julie went through to be together they would never stand in the way of true love. It was a total rewrite of the history of the relationship. The decision to leave was a mutual one between all parties, even though the Hayes' would have preferred to stay with the show they loved.

While Susan went on to join the cast of The Young and the Restless the following year, Hayes refocused on his singing by performing on the cabaret circuit and recording a few albums.

The character of Doug returned in 1986 and 1987, as well as 1993 and 1996. Most recently, he has been on the show since 1999, only to have his character killed off in the spring of 2004 by Dr. Marlena Evans (This was done to reduce the show's budget). In an elaborate plot hatched by head writer James E. Reilly, Doug Williams turned up alive on a tropical island and went home to his wife.

In 2005, the couple published their joint autobiography, Like Sands Through The Hourglass.

Bill is still performing on stage, more recently playing Beauregard in Mame and with his wife in productions of A Christmas Carol, Love Letters and Same Time, Another Year, which is a sequel to Same Time, Next Year.