30 Facts About Louis Hayward

Louis Charles Hayward was a South African-born, British-American actor.

Louis Hayward spent some time managing a night club but wanted to act and bought into a stock company.

Louis Hayward became a protege of Noel Coward and began appearing in London in plays such as Dracula and Another Language.

Louis Hayward was in the Sir Gerald du Maurier stage play The Church Mouse.

Louis Hayward had the lead role in Chelsea Life and supporting parts in Sorrell and Son, The Thirteenth Candle and I'll Stick to You.

Louis Hayward appeared in a Coward musical, Conversation Piece and had the lead in The Love Test, directed by Michael Powell.

Louis Hayward went to Broadway in 1935 with a production of Coward's Point Valaine working with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

The play, described as one of Coward's worst and poorly received critically and popularly, only ran for six weeks and was considered a failure, but Louis Hayward won the Donaldson award, a precursor to the Tonys and as a consequence signed a four-picture contract with MGM.

Louis Hayward started at MGM with a supporting role in The Flame Within, written and directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Ann Harding.

Louis Hayward followed that film with A Feather in Her Hat for Columbia, billed after Basil Rathbone.

Louis Hayward's career started to gain momentum when he was cast in the prologue of Warner Bros.

Louis Hayward's profile was raised by marriage to Ida Lupino.

Louis Hayward was the male lead in RKO's Condemned Women.

Louis Hayward was cast as the first screen incarnation of Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York at RKO.

In 1938 Louis Hayward 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.

Louis Hayward was loaned to Columbia to co-star with his wife Ida Lupino in Ladies in Retirement.

In July 1942, during World War II, Louis Hayward enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

Louis Hayward was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and attained the rank of captain.

Louis Hayward returned to the swashbuckler genre for Edward Small with Monte Cristo's Revenge.

Louis Hayward made a thriller for Eagle Lion, Repeat Performance, then did The Black Arrow Strikes, another swashbuckler.

Louis Hayward went to Italy to make The Masked Pirate for United Artists.

Louis Hayward began appearing on TV in "Crossed and Double Crossed" for The Ford Television Theatre.

Louis Hayward starred in Men Behind Bars for Warner Bros.

Louis Hayward starred in the 1954 syndicated television series The Lone Wolf, which ran for 39 episodes.

Louis Hayward guest starred on series such as Riverboat and was in a TV production of The Picture of Dorian Gray with George C Scott.

Louis Hayward starred in the British television series The Pursuers.

Louis Hayward had roles in Harold Robbins' The Survivors, The Phynx, Night Gallery, The Last of the Powerseekers and Terror in the Wax Museum.

Louis Hayward then met Peggy Morrow, and after dating for a while, they married on 29 May 1946.

Louis Hayward died on 21 February 1985 at the age of 75 in Palm Springs, California from lung cancer.

Louis Hayward publicly stated that his more than five-decade-long habit of smoking three packs of cigarettes daily was the likely cause of his cancer.