Lew Ayres - Life and Career

Life and Career

Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and reared in San Diego, California. Ayres began acting in bit player roles in films in 1927. He was discovered that year playing banjo in the Henry Halstead Orchestra as Halstead was recording one of the earliest Vitaphone movie shorts called Carnival Night in Paris (Warner Brothers, 1927). Ayres wrote, "I was a member of Henry Halstead's orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego, California for the summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year's Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion."

Ayres played opposite Greta Garbo in 1929's The Kiss, but it was his leading role in 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front which made him a star. Ayres was Janet Gaynor's leading man in Servants' Entrance (1934), which featured a combination of live action and Walt Disney animation in a musical dream sequence. He played the title role in Young Dr. Kildare in 1938 and became a matinee idol, starring in several Kildare films. During this time, Ayres also co-starred with Joan Crawford and James Stewart in The Ice Follies of 1939.

Mirroring his anti-war and medical roles in his film work, Ayres was a pacifist who sought to become a member of the Medical Corps during World War II. The United States armed forces, however, would not guarantee him that position, so he declared himself a conscientious objector, and reported to a CPS camp. But having such a well-known public figure take this stance was poor publicity for the United States armed forces. It led to revisions of the rules, at which point Ayres was then able to join the Medical Corps. He served with distinction in the Pacific theater and in New Guinea.

Ayres made few films after the war, but in 1948 his role in Johnny Belinda earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Co-star Jane Wyman fell in love with Ayres and left her husband Ronald Reagan for him, albeit unsuccessfully.

In the summer of 1958, Ayres hosted eleven original episodes of a CBS Western anthology television series called Frontier Justice, a production of Dick Powell's Four Star Television. He was offered the part of Dr. Kildare in an NBC series. But his prescient request that the show have no cigarette advertising led to the offer being withdrawn, and the part went, in 1961, to Richard Chamberlain.

He played the role of the governor in the pilot episode of the TV CBS series Hawaii Five-O. He chose not to move to Hawaii to do the series, but did appear in the show in other roles from time to time. He also had many guest roles in other television programs.

He played the role of Mandemus in the 1973 "Battle for the Planet of the Apes". His 1976 documentary film Altars of the World brought his Eastern philosophical beliefs to the screen and earned him critical acclaim. Ayres' science-fiction roles included appearances in the second season of The Bionic Woman as a pacifist scientist, Dr. Elijah Cooper, in the 1977 two-part episode "Doomsday Is Tomorrow," and as Adar, the pacifist President of the Council of the Twelve, in the original Battlestar Galactica film in 1978. In 1974, he had appeared in a small role as Dr. Emil Vaslovik, creator of the title android, in The Questor Tapes, written for television by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon and directed by Richard A. Colla, who, almost four years later, again directed him in Battlestar Galactica: "Saga of a Star World".

Ayres played a Vice President of the United States twice, in Advise & Consent (1962) and The Man (1972), as well as the President of the United States in the made-for-TV Earth II (1971).

Late in life, he appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the father of the Murray Slaughter character played by Gavin MacLeod. The episode involved a May–December romance between Mary and Murray's father.

His last role was on the made-for-TV film, "Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Heart" (1994).

Ayres died December 30, 1996 of complications from a coma. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California next to the unmarked grave of Frank Zappa.