Bill Hayes, the beloved actor who portrayed Doug Williams continuously on “Days of our Lives” since 1970, died on Friday, January 12. He was 98 years old.
“I have known Bill for most of my life and he embodied the heart and soul of ‘Days of our Lives,’” said Ken Corday, the executive producer of “Days ofour Lives” and owner of Corday Productions, which produces the series alongside Sony Pictures Television. He added, “Although we are grieving and will miss him, Bill’s indelible legacy will live on in our hearts and the stories we tell, both on and off the screen.”
Born William Foster Hayes III on June 5, 1925 in Harvey, Illinois, Hayes fathered five children with his first wife, Mary Hobbs, whom he’d been married to from 1947 to 1969. Five years later, Hayes married “Days of our Lives” co-star and on-screen scene partner Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie Williams) in 1974. Two years later, the couple would not only see their characters get married on the show but they would also see themselves featured on the cover of Time, marking the first and only time that performers on a daytime drama series had ever graced the magazine’s cover.
JPI Studios/NBC/Everett Collection
In 2005, the Hayeses published their joint autobiography titled “Like Sands Through the Hourglass,” a reference to the key phrase said by Macdonald Carey at the beginning of the “Days of our Lives” opening since the series debuted in 1965.
During “The 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards” in 2018, Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes were dually presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by co-star Deidre Hall (Marlena Evans). Bill Hayes received two Daytime Emmy Award nominations for his portrayal of Doug Williams on “Days of our Lives,” first in 1975 and again in 1976, both in the category of Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series.
Outside of “Days of our Lives,” Hayes appeared in numerous television shows and movies throughout his career, including “True Story,” “Kiss Me, Kate,” “The United States Steel Hour,” “The Yeomen of the Guard,” “Decoy,” “The Cardinal,” “The Bell Telephone Hour,” “Cop Rock” and “Frasier,” among others.
Recalling his freshman year attending DePauw University in 1941, Hayes wrote in “Like Sands Through the Hour Glass” of his decision to join the Navy Air Corps, saying, “As time wore on, all the men either enlisted or got drafted into the service.” He added, “The music of the serenades changed drastically as families and couples were being torn apart by war.”
After enlisting and serving three years in the Navy, Hayes returned to DePauw, where he double majored in music and English and was a Rector Scholar at the University. Shortly after graduating in 1947, Hayes became a regular on “Your Show of Shows,” a popular variety television show at the time.
As a singer, Hayes is well known for his rendition of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” which spent five weeks at the top of the music charts in 1955. Hayes also appeared on Broadway, most famously in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Me and Juliet,” which celebrated its 70th anniversary last year with a performance by Hayes of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”
“‘Me and Juliet’ opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City on May 28, 1953, where it ran for 358 performances. Featuring music by Richard Rodgers and a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, the show was directed by George Abbott with Dances and Musical Numbers staged by Robert Alton. The best-known song from the score “No Other Love” (introduced by Isabel Bigley and Bill Hayes) reused a melody known as “Beneath the Southern Cross,” originally written by Rodgers for the 1952 documentary series “Victory at Sea.”
In a 2017 interview with Soap Opera Digest, Hayes told the magazine of how he got asked to sing his rendition of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” recalling, “Archie Bleyer was the head of Cadence Records, and he called me in the morning of December 16, 1954, and he said, ‘Are you able to record a song with me?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ He wrote the arrangement and I studied the song and we met at 10 o’clock that night, recorded it in one take, and we were on the way. It’s a gold record and it’s on my wall and I’m looking at it now.” Hayes later went on tour following the song’s success, telling Digest, “Everybody in the audience would know every word in the song. It’s just that good a song! Everybody in the country today still knows it. If I start singing, they’ll sing along with me. It was quite a magic ride. It just took off like a skyrocket.”
In 2022, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day,” a video of Hayes singing his rendition of “A Little Bit of Heaven” was posted to the “Days of our Lives” official YouTube channel. The folk song was first introduced in 1914 with music by Ernest Ball and lyrics by Keirn Brennan.
Watch Hayes perform “A Little Bit of Heaven” below.
Watch Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes receive their Lifetime Achievement Award below (2:01:50-2:18:40 mark).