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Known For

Lew Ayres is known for:

  • Damien: Omen II
    Since the sudden and highly suspicious death of his parents, 12-year-old Damien has been in the charge of his wealthy aunt and uncle. Widely feared to be the Antichrist, Damien relentlessly plots to seize control of his uncle's business empire—and the world. Anyone attempting to unravel the secrets of Damien's sinister past or fiendish future meets with a swift and cruel demise.
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
    A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Together with several other young German soldiers, he experiences the horrors of war, such evil of which he had not conceived of when signing up to fight. They eventually become sad, tormented, and confused of their purpose.
  • Battle for the Planet of the Apes
    The fifth and final episode in the Planet of the Apes series. After the collapse of human civilization, a community of intelligent apes led by Caesar lives in harmony with a group of humans. Gorilla General Aldo tries to cause an ape civil war and a community of human mutants who live beneath a destroyed city try to conquer those whom they perceive as enemies. All leading to the finale.

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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.