Lew Ayres(1908-1996)
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
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.
