| Notes |
Married:
- Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, the daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914.
Issue, jt:
- 20180927HAv-
Early years[edit]
Hayes was born the third of seven children in his father's hotel, the Hayes Hotel, in Stannards, New York, a hamlet just outside Wellsville, New York. (Hayes always gave Wellsville as his birthplace, but legally he was born in Stannards).[1][2] He was the son of Elizabeth Morrison and Clark Hayes. His uncle, on his mother's side of the family, was George F. Morrison, vice president of General Electric.[citation needed] Despite his later association with westerns, Hayes did not come from a cowboy background; he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for film roles.
His father, Clark Hayes, operated the Hayes Hotel in Stannards and was also involved in oil production. George Hayes grew up in Stannards and attended Stannards School.[2] He played semiprofessional baseball while in high school. He ran away from home in 1902, at 17, joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus, and became a successful vaudevillian.
Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, the daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle (not to be confused with film actress and writer Dorothy Earle). Hayes had become so successful that by 1928, at age 43, he was able to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. He lost all his savings the next year in the 1929 stock-market crash. Olive persuaded her husband to try his luck in films, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death on July 5, 1957. The couple had no children.
His siblings included his brothers, William W. Hayes, Morrison Hayes, Clark B. Hayes, and his sisters, Nellie Elizabeth Hayes Ebeling and Harriet "Hattie" Elizabeth Hayes Allen.[3] His brother, Morrison Hayes, a Corporal in the United States Army, was killed in action on July 19, 1918, during World War I in France and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during the war. [4]
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