Known For
Acting
Born
Dec 28, 1908
Died
Dec 30, 1996
Place of Birth
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Credits
160 titles
Lew Ayres
Biography
Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised in San Diego, California. A college dropout, he was found by a talent scout in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and entered Hollywood as a bit player. He was leading man to Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was the role of Paul Baumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) that was his big break. He was profoundly affected by the anti-war message of that film, and when, in 1942, the popular star of Young Dr. Kildare (1938) and subsequent Dr. Kildare films was drafted, he was a conscientious objector. America was outraged, and theaters vowed never to show his films again, but quietly he achieved the Medical Corps status he had requested, serving as a medic under fire in the South Pacific and as a chaplain's aid in New Guinea and the Phillipines. His return to film after the war was undistinguished until Johnny Belinda (1948) - his role as the sympathetic physician treating the deaf-mute Jane Wyman won him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Subsequent movie roles were scarce; an opportunity to play Dr. Kildare in television was aborted when the network refused to honor his request for no cigarette sponsorship. He continued to act, but in the 1970s put his long experience into a project to bring to the west the philosophy of the East - the resulting film, Altars of the World (1976), while not a box-office success, won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award. Lew Ayres died in Los Angeles, California on December 30, 1996, just two days after his 88th birthday.
Known For
Filmography
Checking Out: Grand Hotel
Self (archive footage)
Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart
Professor Cabel
MGM: When the Lion Roars
Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker
actor 'Advise and 'Consent' (archive footage) (uncredited)
Cast the First Stone
Martin
Outlaws
L.A. Law
Lorimar Henderson
Under Siege
John Pace
Lime Street
Henry Wade Culver
Finder of Lost Loves
Oliver Hawthorne
Highway to Heaven
Don Camillo
Doc
Bruised Celluloid
Himself
The A-Team
Bernie Greene
Hotel
Nelson O'Neil
Cagney & Lacey
Fame
Of Mice and Men
Candy
Simon & Simon
Magnum, P.I.
Sidney Dollinger
Reunion
Bob Hollander
Knots Landing
Andrew Douglas
Letters from Frank
Dan Miller
Salem's Lot
Jason Burke
Trapper John, M.D.
Suddenly, Love
Mr. Graham
The Story of Noah
Noah
Battlestar Galactica
President Adar
Flying High
Wilbur Dodson
Battlestar Galactica
President Adar
Damien - Omen II
Bill Atherton
The Love Boat
Carl Hooper
End of the World
Com. Joseph Beckerman
The Fantastic Journey
Rayat
Quincy, M.E.
Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident
Allen Dulles
That's Entertainment, Part II
(archive footage)
Altars of the World
Director
The Bionic Woman
Wonder Woman
Dr. Kenneth Wilson
Little House on the Prairie
Heatwave!
Dr. Grayson
The Questor Tapes
Vaslovik
The Magician
Max Braden
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Mandemus
Hawkins
Gus Bitterman
The Stranger
Prof. Dylan MacAuley
Kung Fu
Beaumont
The Streets of San Francisco
The Man
Noah Calvin