Lewis Frederick Ayres III (December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor whose film and television career spanned 65 years. He is best known for starring as German soldier Paul Bäumer in the film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and for playing Dr. Kildare in nine films.[1] He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Johnny Belinda (1948).
Ayres was born in Minneapolis[2] to Irma Bevernick and Louis Ayres, who divorced when he was four. Louis, an amateur musician and court reporter, remarried soon afterwards.
As a teen, he and his mother moved with his step-father, William Gilmore,[3] and half brother and sister to San Diego, California.[4]
Leaving high school before graduating, he started a small band which traveled to Mexico. He returned months later to pursue an acting career, but continued working full-time as a musician. He played banjo and guitar for big bands, including the Henry Halstead Orchestra. He recorded 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."[citation needed]
He left a national tour to pursue a career as an actor full-time.
Career
Ayres was discovered at a night club by talent agent Ivan Kahn. He was cast to play opposite Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was his leading role in the original version of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) that made him a star, secured him a contract with Universal—and made him a conscientious objector to World War II.
The role earned him considerable critical attention, including interest from MGM to put him under contract specifically for the role of Dr. James Kildare in an upcoming film series. Ayres played the role in nine films from 1938 to 1942 (and again in a 1950s radio series) while also appearing in light comedies for MGM, including Spring Madness and Rich Man, Poor Girl (both 1938), The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939), and Fingers at the Window (1942). His final film as Dr. Kildare, Born to Be Bad, was re-edited after he was drafted and declared himself a conscientious objector in March 1942.
Ayres gradually moved to television, appearing in several anthology series in guest roles. In the summer of 1958, he hosted eleven original episodes of a CBSWestern 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. (In 1961, the part went to Richard Chamberlain.) He appeared (as the vice-president) in Advise & Consent (1962), and in The Carpetbaggers (1964), but he was, by then, primarily a television actor, with only occasional film work.
For a guest role in Kung Fu ("The Vanishing Image", 1974) he was nominated for an Emmy.
His documentary film Altars of the World (1976), based on a series of documentaries he made titled Altars of the East (1956), brought his Eastern philosophical beliefs to the screen and earned him critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for best documentaryin 1977.[6]
Ayres guest-starred in an episode of The Bionic Woman ("Doomsday is Tomorrow", 1977) as Dr. Elijah Cooper, an elderly nuclear scientist who attempts to blackmail the world into peace. In 1973 he played a similar role on Hawaii Five-O as a nuclear Scientist who in a twist ending ends up dying of radiation from his own bomb.
In 1985, he was cast in his first series as a regular cast member, as the father of Robert Wagner in the short-lived series Lime Street. His last role was in the made-for-TV film Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Heart (1994), also starring Wagner.
World War II conscientious objector and medic
In March 1942, Ayres was identified as a 4E conscientious objector and sent to a CO camp. As expected, the announcement that a Hollywood actor objected to the war was a major source of public outcry and debate.[6]
Within a month it was determined that he had initially requested to be A-O-1, so that he could serve as a non-combat medic. However, the military's policy that servicemen cannot request, or be guaranteed, where they will serve, forced him to request a 4E status. The U.S. military confirmed that they would place him as a medic and in April 1942, his status was changed. He enlisted in the United States Army on May 18, 1942.[7]
He served as a first aid instructor in the United States Army before requesting a drop in rank in order to serve as a medic and chaplain's assistant in the Pacific. He was one of 16 medics who arrived under fire during the invasion of Leyte to set up evacuation hospitals, and there he provided care to soldiers and civilians in the Philippines and New Guinea. He donated all the money he had earned as a serviceman to the American Red Cross.[8]
Serving for three and a half years in the Medical Corps, he was awarded three battle stars. After the war, he resumed his career and made scores of movies, but never reached the peak of his early Hollywood stardom.[9]
Personal life
Ayres' grave
Ayres was married three times. First to actress Lola Lane from 1931 until 1933, although they were separated much of that period.[10] He met actress Ginger Rogers while starring in the film Don't Bet on Love in 1933 and they wed in 1934. They separated in 1936 and divorced in March 1940.[11] His third marriage, to Diana Hall, lasted from 1964 until his death in 1996.[9] Their son Justin was born in 1968.
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931) and is known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor, originally created in the 1930s by the author Frederick Schiller Faust under the pen name Max Brand. Shortly after the character's first appearance in a magazine story, Paramount Pictures used the story and character as the basis for the 1937 film Internes Can't Take Money, starring Joel McCrea as Jimmie Kildare. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) subsequently acquired the rights and featured Kildare as the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Several of these films were co-written by Faust, who also continued to write magazine stories and novels about the character until the early 1940s. Kildare was portrayed by Lew Ayres in nine MGM films. Later films set in the same hospital featured Dr. Gillespie. Ayres returned to voice the Kildare character in an early 1950s radio series. The 1961–1966 Dr. Kildare television series made a star of Richard Chamberlain and gave birth to a comic book and comic strip based on the show. A short-lived reboot of the TV series, Young Doctor Kildare, debuted in 1972 and ran for 24 episodes.
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Dr. Kildare's Victory is a 1942 film directed by W. S. Van Dyke. It stars Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore. It is the ninth and last of the MGM Dr. Kildare movie series.
Dr. Kildare Goes Home is a 1940 American drama film directed by Harold S. Bucquet, starring Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore and Laraine Day. It is the fifth in the MGM series of nine films with Lew Ayres as Dr. Kildare made from 1938–1942.
George H. Reed (1866-1952) was an American actor working in the Hollywood film industry in both the silent and sound eras. His first major film was the 1920 Huckleberry Finn where he played Jim. He is also remembered for the film The Green Pastures (1936), which featured an all–African American cast, and the orderly Conover in MGM's Dr. Kildare series.
Dr. Kildare is an NBC medical drama television series which originally ran from September 28, 1961, until August 30, 1966, for a total of 191 episodes over five seasons. Produced by MGM Television, it was based on fictional doctor characters originally created by author Max Brand in the 1930s and previously used by MGM in a popular film series and radio drama. The TV series quickly achieved success and made a star of Richard Chamberlain, who played the title role. Dr. Kildare inspired or influenced many later TV shows dealing with the medical field. Dr. Kildare aired on NBC affiliate stations on Thursday nights at 8:30–9:30 p.m. until September 1965, when the timeslot was changed to Monday and Tuesday nights at 8:30–9:00 p.m. through the end of the show's run.
John Hugh Elliott was an American actor who appeared on Broadway and in over 300 films during his career. He worked sporadically during the silent film era, but with the advent of sound his career took off, where he worked constantly for 25 years, finding a particular niche in "B" westerns.
↑ Kovac, Jeffrey. (2009). Refusing War, Affirming Peace: A History of Civilian Public Service Camp #21 at Cascade Locks. Oregon State University Press. p. 54. ISBN978-0870715754
↑ Braitman, Jacqueline R. (2020). She Damn Near Ran the Studio: The Extraordinary Lives of Ida R. Koverman. University Press of Mississippi. p. 194. ISBN978-1496830388
↑ "Lew Ayres". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
↑ "Lew Ayres". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
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