Steven
DeRosa and Rochelle Hayes Skala at the 2004 WGA Awards. Rochelle accepted the
Screen Laurel Award on behalf of her father John Michael Hayes.
Tribute
to John Michael Hayes
Rochelle Hayes accepting the Laurel Award
In
a career that spanned more than forty years, beginning with radio, the movies,
and then television, the name John Michael Hayes has become synonymous with quality.
Having produced a body of work that resulted in two Academy Award nominations,
three nominations for awards by the Writers' Guild of America, and now the Screen
Laurel Award, Hayes amassed not only an impressive list of credits, but a reputation
for writing solidly constructed screenplays, which were prized for their unique
blend of sophisticated repartee and colloquial banter.
John
Michael Hayes was born on May 11, 1919, in Worcester, Massachusetts. His father
had been a song-and-dance performer in vaudeville before starting a family, and
proudly passed on a bit of the show business in his blood to his middle child
and only son. As a boy Hayes spent a good deal of time out of school from the
second grade through the fifth, suffering a series of illnesses. He began his
own literary education though, reading whatever books and magazines he could obtain.
By the age of nine, John Michael Hayes knew that he wanted to be a writer.
During
the early 1930s, the Hayes family relocated a number of times, from Detroit, Michigan
to State Line, New Hampshire and back to Worcester, Massachusetts, wherever the
elder Hayes could get work. During this time, Hayes first tried his hand at writing,
joining the staff of a school newspaper. By the age of sixteen, he had become
editor of a Boy Scout weekly, and soon after was hired as a cub reporter for the
Worcester Telegram.
Eventually Hayes became interested in radio and put his editing and feature writing
skills to work at small radio stations in northern Massachusetts, where he earned
enough money to enroll at Massachusetts State College - later the University of
Massachusetts - in Amherst. where he majored in English and continued pursuing
his interest in radio.
Following
an internship with a radio station in Ohio, Hayes accepted a position as editor
of daytime serials for Proctor and Gamble. When he was drafted into the Army during
World War II, Hayes put the years spent learning his father's vaudeville routines
to work, writing and performing in stage shows to entertain the troops.
After
the war Hayes embarked on a career as a radio writer in Hollywood, where he quickly
found work writing for a variety of CBS shows such as The Whistler and
Twelve Players. His stay in Hollywood was cut short though, when he was
stricken with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. After nearly eighteen months
in a veterans hospital, Hayes hitchhiked from Massachusetts to California where
he was put back to work at CBS to write a new show for Lucielle Ball called My
Favorite Husband. He never looked back.
Specializing
in comedy and suspense, Hayes turned out expert scripts for many popular series,
including Amos and Andy, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Alias Jane
Doe, Suspense and Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Among
the most successful of Hayes's radio shows was The Adventures of Sam Spade,
which truly showed off his flare for wisecracking comedy, as well as his nimble
plotting abilities. Within three years Hayes was a top man in his field, with
over 1,500 radio scripts to his credit. In a medium that relied on the spoken
word, Hayes had become an expert in creating crisp, sophisticated dialogue.
It
was during this period that Hayes met and courted Mildred Louise Hicks, a high-style
fashion model, whose professional name was Mel Lawrence and whose beauty rivaled
that of the most stunning leading ladies who would later appear in his films.
They were married on August 29, 1950.
In
1951, Hayes caught the attention of Universal Pictures and was offered an opportunity
to write for the movies. His first assignment was a World War II action film called
Red Ball Express, which starred Jeff Chandler and Sidney Poitier. Hayes's
next assignment at Universal was based on an original story of his own, which
ultimately became Thunder Bay. It was his first of three scripts for James
Stewart.
Following
Thunder Bay, Hayes signed with the Music Corporation of America's talent
agency, MCA Artists. Within days his new agent, Ned Brown, had gotten him assignments
at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including Torch Song, a Joan Crawford vehicle which
marked her return to MGM after eleven years. A Jeff Chandler western, War Arrow,
followed, as well as an adaptation of Richard Harding Davis's The Bar Sinister
for MGM. (Production was held up until 1955, though, and The Bar Sinister
was released in the U.S. as It's a Dog's Life.)
The
move to MCA paid off, when in the spring of 1953 Hayes was handpicked by Alfred
Hitchcock to adapt Cornell Woolrich's short story, Rear Window. The collaboration
would be an important turning point for both. For Hitchcock, it marked the beginning
of his most successful period, critically and commercially. For Hayes, it lifted
him into the world of A-list directors, stars, and budgets, and began his long
association with Paramount Pictures. Despite Hitchcock's reputation as a martinet,
Hayes was given tremendous creative freedom, and together they created one of
the most enduring works of the cinema.
Both
he and Hitchcock earned Academy Award nominations for their work on Rear Window.
Neither went home with Oscars, but Hayes did receive an Edgar award from the Mystery
Writers of America for his screenplay. Their styles and temperaments meshed and
Hayes went on to write Hitchcock's next three films - To Catch a Thief,
The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. But when
Hayes successfully challenged Hitchcock over a credit dispute, the relationship
came to an abrupt end.
Following
his break with Hitchcock, Hayes was offered the job of adapting what was to become
a scandalous bestseller, Grace Metalious's Peyton Place. Considered unfilmmable,
Hayes tastefully reworked the novel's sensational elements into a sensitive drama
that was a hit with audiences. Peyton Place became the top-grossing film
of the year, and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including one for best
picture, and one for Hayes's screenplay.
Adaptations
of successful plays followed, including Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker
and But Not for Me, based on Samson Raphaelson's Accent on Youth.
Hayes also worked uncredited on the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster film of Terence Rattigan's
Separate Tables and on the Perlberg-Seaton film of Garson Kanin's The
Rat Race. A number of popular novels Hayes adapted were not filmed.
As
the 1950s drew to a close, Hayes grew disenchanted with Hollywood. The disappointment
inherent in writing projects that were shelved or canceled; the pressures of working
at a studio; the constant prodding by his agent that he should try his hand at
directing; and prolonged negotiations between the WGA and producers over residuals
helped Hayes make the decision to move with Mel and their children - Rochelle
and Garrett - to Maine, where their youngest children, Meredyth and Corey, were
born.
In
spite of his being three thousand miles from Hollywood, offers continued to pour
in. Hayes script-doctored an Elizabeth Taylor vehicle Butterfield 8 for
MGM and followed with adaptations of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour,
and Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden.
In
1962 Hayes began a long association with Joseph E. Levine. Having achieved notoriety
for his company Embassy Pictures, through the distribution of foreign-made exploitation
films, Levine decided to move into production and purchased the rights to Harold
Robbins's steamy bestseller The Carpetbaggers. Hayes's adaptation was a
tremendous financial success and was quickly followed by another Levine production
of a Robbins novel, Where Love Has Gone. With the promise of greater control
and financial compensation, Hayes entered a long-term contract with Levine which
eventually led to his appointment as vice president in charge of literary properties
for Embassy. What Hayes didn't know was that most of Levine's plans would never
come to fruition, and many of the scripts he wrote for the company remained unproduced.
When
Levine turned his attention to a bio-pic of Jean Harlow, he sacrificed quality
for speed in a frantic rush to beat another Harlow production to the theaters.
He called on Hayes to completely rewrite the script as it was being shot. After
Harlow, Hayes took on another rewriting assignment, the Sophia Loren vehicle Judith.
Hayes's
script Nevada Smith, based on the character from The Carpetbaggers,
went into production in 1965 and would remain his last feature credit for nearly
thirty years. (Hayes did write the cult hit Walking Tall, but opted not
to accept screen credit.) In the 1970s, while still serving out his contract with
Levine's Embassy Pictures, Hayes turned to writing and producing for television,
including the TV movie, Winter Kill, and the pilot for a series based on
Nevada Smith.
Hayes
continued writing into the 1980s, scripting Pancho Barnes, a TV movie about
the colorful life of the aviatrix, and coming close to production on a number
of other projects. One of these projects, Iron Will, finally went before
the cameras in the early 1990s. After nearly thirty years, Hayes was once again
in the spotlight.
In
recent years John Michael Hayes has been a professor of film studies and screenwriting
at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he and Mel relocated in 1988. In
addition, Hayes has lectured around the country at film festivals and universities
about his career. He officially retired in 2000.
