Louis Hayward

Louis Hayward
File:Louis Hayward in Anthony Adverse trailer.jpg Louis Hayward in Anthony Adverse
Born	Louis Charles Hayward (1909-03-19)19 March 1909 Johannesburg, South Africa
Died	Palm Springs, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1932-1974
Spouse(s)	Ida Lupino (m.1938-1945; divorced) Peggy Morrow Field (m.1946-1950; divorced) June Hanson (m.1953-1985; his death)
Awards	Bronze Star Medal

Louis Charles Hayward (19 March 1909 – 21 February 1985) was a South African-born English actor.

Biography

Born in Johannesburg, Louis Hayward lived in South Africa and was educated in France and England, including Latymer Upper School in London. He spent some time managing a night club but wanted to act and bought into a stock company. He became a protege of Noël Coward and began appearing in London in plays such as Dracula and Another Language; he started being cast in some British films of the early 1930s.

Hayward came to Broadway in 1935 with a production of Noël Coward's Point Valaine working with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It only ran a short time, after which Hayward moved to Hollywood. He started getting work almost immediately, gaining great attention in the prologue of Anthony Adverse (1936). He was then cast as the first screen incarnation of Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York.

In 1938 he starred in The Duke of West Point for producer Edward Small who signed him to make three films over the next five years, meaning he was unable to reprise his part as the Saint. However Small cast him in a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask as well as The Son of Monte Cristo (1940). He had a small role in The Magnificent Ambersons (1941) which was cut out. He became an American citizen in December 1941.

War Service

During World War II, Hayward enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and commanded a photographic unit that filmed the Battle of Tarawa in a documentary titled With the Marines at Tarawa (winner of the 1944 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Hayward was awarded the Bronze Star Medal While off-duty in New Zealand he "went under the name of "Captain Richards" to avoid the rush of the ladies" as recalled by a waiter at a Wellington restaurant, the Green Parrot.

Return to Hollywood

Returning to Hollywood, he played Philip Lombard in the 1945 film version of And Then There Were None. He continued to make swashbuckler films. In the 1950s Hayward made large numbers of television appearances. He starred in the 1954 syndicated television series The Lone Wolf and the 1961 British television series The Pursuers. Hayward's other television work includes a role as a judge in an episode, "Day of Reckoning" (original air date 22 November 1962), of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Hayward's work onstage included Noël Coward's Conversation Piece, and, in the early 1960s, the national tour of Camelot, in which he appeared as King Arthur. Hayward retired from acting in the 1970s.

Personal life

Hayward married actress/director Ida Lupino on 17 November 1938 in a quiet civil ceremony held in the Santa Barbara courthouse. After he returned from the war he was drastically different, which caused a strain in the marriage. They were divorced in 1945. He then met Peggy Morrow and after dating for a while they married on May 29, 1946. They divorced four years later on 13 March 1950. Louis Hayward had one son, Dana (who died in 2007), with his third wife, June Hanson (who died in 1998). He was posthumously reported to have had a long-standing intimate relationship with playwright/screenwriter Noël Coward in biographies of the latter.

Death

Louis Hayward died in Palm Springs, California, from lung cancer, aged 75, blaming his illness on a five-decade habit of smoking three packs of cigarettes daily. At the actor's request, there was no funeral or memorial service.

Selected filmography

• Self Made Lady (1932)
• Chelsea Life (1933)
• The Man Outside (1933)
• A Feather in Her Hat (1935)
• Trouble for Two (1936)
• Anthony Adverse (1936)
• The Woman I Love (1937)
• The Saint in New York (1938)
• The Rage of Paris (1938)
• The Duke of West Point (1938)
• The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)
• Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
• The Son of Monte Cristo (1940)
• My Son, My Son! (1940)
• Ladies in Retirement (1941)
• And Then There Were None (1945)
• Young Widow (1946)
• The Return of Monte Cristo (1946)

• Repeat Performance (1947)
• Ruthless (1948)
• Walk a Crooked Mile (1948)
• The Black Arrow (1948)
• it (1949)
• House by the River (1950)
• Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950)
• Dick Turpin's Ride (1951)
• The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951)
• Captain Blood, Fugitive / Captain Pirate (1952)
• Lady in the Iron Mask (1952)
• The Saint's Return (1953)
• The Royal African Rifles (1953)
• The Christmas Kid (1967)
• Chuka (1967)
• The Phynx (1970)
• Terror in the Wax Museum (1973)

External links

• Louis Hayward at Find a Grave
• Louis Hayward at the Internet Movie Database