Bill Hayes, who originated the role of one of the longest-running characters on Days of Our Lives, has died at 98. A representative for the NBC soap opera confirmed the news on Friday. “I have known Bill for most of my life and he embodied the heart and soul of Days of Our Lives,” executive producer Ken Corday said in a statement. “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 in Illinois, Hayes (real name William Foster Hayes III) earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music. He was certainly known for his voice — he sang on the NBC variety show Your Show of Shows in the early 1950s, performed on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Me and Juliet in 1953, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 with his version of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” in 1955. He also toured with the national production of Bye Bye Birdie.
In 1970, Hayes began starring in Days of Our Lives as singing con artist Doug Williams. His wife, Susan Seaforth Hayes, also starred alongside him in the show as his eventual on-screen spouse, Julie Williams. The couple were so popular that they covered Time in 1976. They left the series in 1984, but continued to make recurring appearances for decades after, and accepted Lifetime Achievement Awards together at the Daytime Emmys in 2018. They would have celebrated 50 years of marriage in October. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Hayes is survived by Seaforth Hayes, their five children, 12 grandchildren, and 27 great-grandchildren.