'Days of Our Lives' Star Bill Hayes Celebrates 98th Birthday on Set
The citizens of Salem came together to celebrate a very special day this week! On Wednesday, Bill Hayes celebrated his 98th birthday on the Days of Our Lives set, his wife and co-star, Susan Seaforth Hayes, and his co-stars coming together to celebrate with a personalized cake and song.
A video posted on his joint Instagram account that he shares with his wife showed the sweet moment the actor was presented with the chocolate cake, which featured a black and white photo of himself and was topped with nine and eight-shaped candles. Hayes was joined on camera by his wife Billy Flynn, who plays Chad DiMera. The post, which also included two images from the on-set celebrations, was captioned, "Thank you to our cast and crew for celebrating Billy's 98th Birthday on set today. And the double chocolate cake was delicious!"
"So Billy had his 98th birthday on Monday. He's been on the show since 1960," Susan could be heard telling the crew in the video, her husband briefly interrupting her to inform her that it was actually 1970. "And he's enjoyed every minute of it. He was the first performer to sing on daytime television. When we used to have a big budget, we'd sing all the time, but now it's only public domain songs and actually "Happy Birthday" is not a public domain song, but if we can all join in, I think it would be a nice gesture."
Following Susan's short speech, the cast and crew of the show sang happy birthday to Hayes, the actor telling everyone "thank you." The video ended with the words, "Here's to more years in Salem... and more birthdays, too!"
Hayes plays the beloved Doug Williams on the long-running soap, with his wife starring as his on-screen wife, Julie. The actor, who previously worked as a recording artist, with his song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" hitting the top of the Billboard charts, per Deadline, joined Days of Our Lives in 1970. His character was introduced as a convicted con artist who also happened to be a lounge singer. Hayes marked his 50th anniversary on the show in 2020. Two years before, he won the Daytime Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award for his role. The show premiered in 1965 on NBC before moving to Peacock in September 2022.