Movies List
TV Show List
Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart

as Professor Cabel

1994
Don Camillo

as Doc

1984
Salem's Lot

as Jason Burke

1979
Damien: Omen II

as Bill Atherton

1978
End of the World

as Com. Joseph Beckerman

1977
The Questor Tapes

as Vaslovik

1974
The Stranger

as Prof. Dylan MacAuley

1973
The Biscuit Eater

as Mr. Ames

1972
She Waits

as Dr. Sam Carpenter

1972
Earth II

as President Charles Carter Durant

1971
The Carpetbaggers

as 'Mac' McAllister

1964
Advise & Consent

as The Vice President

1962
Donovan's Brain

as Dr. Patrick J. Cory

1953
No Escape

as John Howard Tracy

1953
New Mexico

as Capt. Hunt

1951
The Capture

as Lin Vanner / Lindley Brown

1950
Johnny Belinda

as Dr. Robert Richardson

1948
The Unfaithful

as Larry Hannaford

1947
The Dark Mirror

as Dr. Scott Elliott

1946
The Golden Fleecing

as Henry Twinkle

1940
Broadway Serenade

as James Geoffrey 'Jimmy' Seymour

1939
The Ice Follies of 1939

as Eddie Burgess

1939
Remember?

as Sky Ames

1939
Holiday

as Ned Seton

1938
King of the Newsboys

as Jerry Flynn

1938
Young Dr. Kildare

as Dr. James Kildare

1938
Lew Ayres Lew Ayres

Birthday

1908-12-28

Place of Birth

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

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.
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