By Danielle Daniels

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

William Foster Hayes III (June 5, 1925 – January 12, 2024) was an American actor and recording artist. His song “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” hit the top of the Billboard charts in the spring of 1955.

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. This new chapter began in 1970 when he originated the character of Doug Williams on NBC’s Days of Our Lives, which he continued to play until 2023.

Hayes died on January 12, 2024, at the age of 98.

Early life and career

Hayes was a singer on the Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca variety show Your Show of Shows in the early 1950s. He had a supporting role in the 1952 black comedy Stop, You’re Killing Me. 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. He also starred on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein‘s Me and Juliet (1953). He had other 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.

On Days of Our Lives, Hayes was introduced as a convict who was also a lounge singer.

The character of Doug 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.