- He and his wife Susan Seaforth Hayes made the cover of Time magazine in 1976.
- He met and married first wife Mary Hobbs while he was a student at DePauw University. They had five children.
- Co-starring with Lee Meriwether in the nostalgic play "I Remember You" at the Norris Theater in the Los Angeles area. (May 2005)
- Son-in-law of actress Elizabeth Harrower.
- In March 1943, while a freshman at DePauw University, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Air Corps, and received his welcome letter on his eighteenth birthday ordering him to report for active duty on July 1. For the next 27 months, he trained to be a fighter pilot.
- In 1970 he originated the character of Doug Williams on NBC's Days of Our Lives, which he continued to play until 2023.
- He was two weeks shy of receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Air Corps, scheduled to fly an F8F off a carrier, when World War II ended. Given the choice of reenlisting in the Navy or getting out immediately, he opted for civilian life.
- Hayes had small hits in the 1950s including "The Berry Tree" and covers of "High Noon" and "Wringle, Wrangle"; the latter was his only other Hot 100 hit, reaching #33 in 1957.
- He married to his Days of our Lives co-star Susan Seaforth Hayes beginning in 1974. In 2005, the couple published their joint autobiography, Like Sands Through the Hourglass.
- He was awarded the American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
- Following a successful career as a musician which began in the late 1940s, Hayes began to focus on dramatic acting parts in the late 1960s, which led him to be cast in a role that gained him additional fame to a younger generation.
- Bill Hayes was an American actor and recording artist.
- He and his wife also supported the West Texas Rehab Center, hosting the annual telethon in Abilene, Texas.
- After five weeks of hitch-hiking around the Mid-West to celebrate with buddies who were also coming home from World War II, he returned to complete his Bachelor of Arts requirements at DePauw University, where he was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and graduated in June 1947 with a dual major in Music and English.
- He attended Whittier Grade School and Thornton Township High.
- 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: It was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
- On "Days of Our Lives", Hayes was introduced as a convict who was also a lounge singer.
- The character of Doug in " Days of Our Lives" returned in 1986 and 1987 as well as 1993 and 1996. Later, he was on the show from 1999 onwards. His character was killed off in the spring of 2004 by Dr. Marlena Evans. In an elaborate plot hatched by head writer James E. Reilly, Doug turned up alive on a tropical island and went home to his wife.
- He starred on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Me and Juliet" (1953).
- In 2016, the Bill Hayes Prize in Musical Theater was created by the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
- Hayes earned a master's degree in music from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in education from West Virginia University.
- His song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" hit the top of the Billboard charts in the spring of 1955.
- In 2017, World by the Tail, a documentary about Bill Hayes's life, was released online.
- On June 27, 2017, while present in the show's audience, Hayes was featured in an impromptu interview on a web special for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; in his heyday, he had been a guest on the Johnny Carson-hosted version of the show.
- Hayes was a singer on the Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca variety show Your Show of Shows in the early 1950s.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content