Bill Hayes plays Doug Williams on NBC's daytime drama "Days of our Lives." Hayes may have had the longest career in network television of any working actor. In 1950, he started at the top as featured singer on NBC's iconic comedy hour "Your Show of Shows." He segued into starring on Broadway in Roger and Hammerstein's "Me and Juliet."  Hayes sold millions of records, including "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," which got him a gold one!

His peerless tenor and great looks continued to wow audiences. Theater tours of "Camelot," "On a Clear Day," "Anything Goes," "Student Prince," the Broadway revival of "Brigadoon" and the national tour of "Bye Bye Birdie" kept him busy through the decades. In the 21st century, he enjoyed a run of "Where's Charlie?" at the Kennedy Center in D.C.

A major draw in nightclubs, he's played the fabled Blue Angel in New York, the uptown Maisonette at the St. Regis in Manhattan and, with Ann Blyth, the Rainbow and Stars at Rockefeller Center and the Dunes in Las Vegas, where critics penned, "Hayes not only belts one out, he can tap." 

He's charmed the talk show circuit, too; "Tonight" with both Johnny Carson and Jimmy Fallon, Opera, Dinah, Martha, and happily recalls seasons as a semi regular on NBC's original "Hollywood Squares."

Born in Chicago, Bill's a graduate of three universities: De Pauw for his BA, Northwestern for his master's degree in music and University of West Virginia for his Ph.D. in education. In 2005, he wrote the memorable memoir "Like Sands Through the Hourglass" with his wife of 47 years, Susan Seaforth Hayes. According to TV Guide, it was "the best book ever written about daytime television." They also penned a historical novel about actors and are working on a sequel.

All this while appearing on thousands of episodes of "Days of our Lives" as Doug Williams. Hayes has written a song about his life, titled "I've Got the World by the Tail." Appropriately, that's the title of his biopic, available at BillHayesMovie.com. In 2018, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences gave him an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement. Still working at 96, we think he earned it.