[citation needed] This stance almost destroyed Ayres' reputation until it was revealed that he had served honorably as a non-combatant medic from 1942 to 1946. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! After the war, he resumed his career and made scores of movies, but never reached the peak of his early Hollywood stardom.[10]. .wpdt-c .wpDataTablesWrapper table.wpDataTable tr.even td, He served as a First Aid instructor in the United States Army before requesting a drop in rank in order to serve as a medic and chaplain’s assistant in the Pacific. Despite his heroism, most of Hollywood (and America) never really forgave him for refusing to take up arms against his country’s enemies. He admitted he was “never a great one for mixing with people” and, despite his profession, felt that movies were trivial in the grand scheme of things. Ayres III, Lewis “Lew” Frederick, born 28-12-1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Irma Bevernick and Louis Ayres, who divorced when he was four. Americans were sick of war and its end was a relief to the country. The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.), singer, songwriter, musician; an early star of rock 'n' roll ("Chantilly Lace"), he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the pilot, Roger Peterson. Lew Ayres appeared in three Best Picture Oscar® nominees : All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), State Fair (1933) and Johnny Belinda (1948), with All Quiet on the Western Front the only winner. font-size:12px; After starring in the acclaimed 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, actor Lew Ayres began wrestling with his own views on war. .wpdt-c .wpDataTablesWrapper table.has-columns-hidden tr.row-detail > td { When American troops landed on Leyte in the Philippines on October 20, 1944, Ayres was with them and experienced the full horror of war. Lew Ayres was a conscientious objector during World War II, which made him rather unpopular at the studio. [2] He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Johnny Belinda (1948). His actions were rewarded with a Bronze Star for gallantry. Year Movie (Year) Rating S He made a number of mostly forgotten B movies for Universal, with the exception of Iron Man (1931), with Jean Harlow. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year’s Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion.” He left a national tour to pursue a career as an actor full-time. “Fellowship among soldiers, with each man sharing his part of a common burden, is a wonderful thing to experience,” Ayres said. It looked like the couple was going to go the distance. After the war, he resumed his career and made scores of movies, but never reached the peak of his early Hollywood stardom. The actor was willing to serve, but only in a noncombat role, and so he sought classification as a conscientious objector (CO). Part two of ‘Stars Who Went To War 1939-45’ looks at some of the ‘lesser lights’ who signed up to fight for their country – and a few who chose not to. True, Shiela. Eddie and a Lieutenant Fletcher made four trips into the reef where about 150 marines were caught up and under machine-gun and sniper fire. Myrna Loy $9,491,300,000 We may have been better served having John Wayne here. Without a CO classification, he could be drafted and assigned to combat duty. “It was gratifying to have heard not one soldier say anything against what I chose to do,” Ayres said. Happy 110th Anniversary to the Army Religious Affairs Specialists. Ayres was discovered at a night club by talent agent Ivan Kahn. EDDIE ALBERT: The future star of Green Acres won a Bronze Star for courage under fire when he rescued 47 wounded marines from the Tarawa beachhead while under horrific fire. The cathedral was soon flooded with wounded GIs and civilians. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. He was married to actress Lola Lane from 1931 to 1933, and to actress Ginger Rogers from 1934 to 1940, whom he met while starring in the film Don't Bet on Love (1933). “(FX1-May 30) LEW AYRES AT WAKDE–Among the invading troops when the Yanks stormed and captured Wakde Island, Dutch New Guinea, was Lew Ayres (above), former movie star and conscientious objector, now a private and Chaplain’s Assistant. TONY CURTIS: He served aboard a submarine, the USS Proteus, and was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan signed the surrender aboard the USS Missouri in 1945. State Fair (1933)AA Best Picture Nom “He’s a strange man, very strange,” fan magazine Photoplay proclaimed. He was cast to play opposite Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929) , but it was his leading role in the original version of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) that made him a star, secured him a contract with Universal—and made him a conscientious objector to World War II. Louis, an amateur musician and court reporter, remarried soon afterwards. 246 finally approved Ayres’s application in early 1942. “Stretch a screen across of couple of coconut palms, throw a picture upon it, and you get the whole gang out. Lew Ayres’s star was on the rise before the war, due in part to a series of popular films in which he played the idealistic and charming Dr. Kildare. (Photo by W. Eugene Smith/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images), In May 1944, Ayres landed in New Guinea. He portrayed Paul Bäumer—a sensitive and doomed German infantryman increasingly disillusioned with the horrors of trench warfare—in an earnest performance that, said the New York Times, made a “riveting impression on the moviegoing public.” The film packed a strong antiwar punch, and the entertainment journal Variety proclaimed: “The League of Nations could make no better investment than to buy the master print, reproduce it in every language for every nation to be shown every year until the word War shall have been taken out of the dictionaries.”, As a box-office attraction, Ayres hit stride in the late 1930s with his role as Dr. James Kildare in nine “B movies” that sometimes earned more than the studio’s major productions. Pacifism, it said, “is a doctrine for the other-worldly and for saints, and there will never be enough of those to interfere with our war efforts.”, Ironically, it was a soldier, Private Eugene B. Crowe, who offered the staunchest support in a letter to Time magazine, writing: “Lew Ayres, instead of being detrimental to our public good, is indicative of what the American people wrote into their Bill of Rights and what we fight our wars about—the right to freedom in a democracy.”.
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