Louis Charles Hayward (19 March 1909 – 21 February 1985) was a South African actor.
Early life, family and education
Louis Hayward was born in Johannesburg and raised in South Africa. However, he was educated in France and England, including Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, London.
Hayward spent some time managing a nightclub but wanted to act and bought into a stock company.
He became a protégé of Noël Coward and began appearing in London in plays such as Dracula and Another Language. He was in the Gerald du Maurier stage play The Church Mouse.
Hayward started being cast in some British films of the early 1930s, such as Self Made Lady (1932) and The Man Outside (1933). He had the lead role in Chelsea Life (1933) and supporting parts in Sorrell and Son (1933), The Thirteenth Candle (1933) and I'll Stick to You (1933).
He appeared in a Coward musical, Conversation Piece (1934) and had the lead in The Love Test (1935), directed by Michael Powell.
Hayward performed on 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 Hayward won the Donaldson Award, a precursor to the Tony Awards
Consequently, he signed a four-picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He started at MGM with a supporting role in The Flame Within (1935), written and directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Ann Harding. Hayward followed that film with A Feather in Her Hat for Columbia, billed after Basil Rathbone. Back at MGM he had supporting parts in Absolute Quiet (1935) and Trouble for Two (1936).
Hayward's career started to gain momentum when he was cast in the prologue of Warner Bros.' expensive blockbuster Anthony Adverse (1936), playing the father of the title character. His profile also was raised by marriage to Ida Lupino.
At Universal, he was the male lead in The Luckiest Girl in the World (1936) with Jane Wyatt, then he went to RKO to support Paul Muni and Miriam Hopkins in The Woman I Love (1937). Universal cast him in the lead of Midnight Intruder (1938), directed by Arthur Lubin. He also was the male lead in RKO's Condemned Women (1938).
Hayward was cast as the first screen incarnation of Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York (1938) at RKO. The film was a hit and would eventually lead to a long-running series. However, the next five films in the series starred George Sanders as Templar. Hayward would eventually reprise the role in The Saint's Return in 1953. He supported Danielle Darrieux and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in The Rage of Paris (1938) at Universal.
In 1938, Hayward starred in The Duke of West Point (1938) 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. However, Small started building Hayward into a star, casting him in a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) under the direction of James Whale, co-starring with Joan Bennett. The film was a notable success.
Small put Hayward into My Son, My Son! (1940) with Madeleine Carroll and Brian Aherne. RKO borrowed him for Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) where he appeared with Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball. Small then put him in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940), another swashbuckler with Bennett and a sequel to the 1934 The Count of Monte Cristo.
Hayward was loaned to Columbia to co-star with his wife Ida Lupino in Ladies in Retirement (1941).
In July 1942, during World War II, Hayward enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He commanded a photographic unit that filmed the Battle of Tarawa in the documentary With the Marines at Tarawa—winner of the 1944 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Hayward was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and attained the rank of captain.
While off-duty in New Zealand, he "went under the name of 'Captain Richards' to avoid the rush of the ladies" as recalled by a waiter at the Green Parrot, a Wellington restaurant.
Returning to Hollywood, he played Philip Lombard in the 1945 film version of And Then There Were None (1945) for René Clair.