Born: 3rd April 1929
Died: 16th September 2014 (aged 85 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1978-1979

Michael Hayes was born in Barking, Essex. When he was fifteen years old, Hayes was cast by Irish playwright Falkland Cary in the play Burning Gold. The experience spurred his desire to become a professional actor, and he won a place in the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1955, Hayes married actress Mary Chester; they would have a daughter, Alisoun. Around this time, a shift in career plans led Hayes to take a position as a studio manager with the BBC World Service. Hayes soon moved into television, quickly rising from floor manager to director by 1960, when he was handed the reins of the prestigious Shakespearean adaptation An Age Of Kings.

The following year, Hayes was a producer-director on the early science-fiction serial A For Andromeda, which helped launch the career of actress Julie Christie. Other directing assignments during the Sixties included episodes of Maigret, Z Cars, The Troubleshooters and The Wars Of The Roses. He both wrote and directed a 1969 edition of Thirty-Minute Theatre. Hayes' marriage ended in divorce following his relationship with Jane Phillips, whom he had met at the BBC and who later became his second wife. They would have two children -- daughter Kelly and son Patrick -- before an amicable split in 1980.

Hayes was mortified to be asked to convincingly realise an enormous squid for The Power Of Kroll

Hayes remained prolific throughout the Seventies, with credits including Barlow At Large, Churchill's People, Oil Strike North and When The Boat Comes In. He was encouraged to direct for Doctor Who by Graeme MacDonald, the BBC's Head of Serials; Hayes had already worked with producer Graham Williams and script editor Anthony Read on several occasions. Hayes reluctantly consented to the assignment in 1978, and was mortified to find himself asked to convincingly realise a confrontation between Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor and an enormous squid for The Power Of Kroll. It was ultimately agreed that Hayes would make The Androids Of Tara instead.

Hayes immediately returned for the finale of the Key To Time storyline, The Armageddon Factor. Here he cast Lalla Ward in the role of Princess Astra; she would return to Doctor Who the following year to play a new incarnation of the Doctor's Time Lord companion, Romana. Hayes, too, was back for a third and final Doctor Who serial: on 1979's City Of Death, Hayes became the first director to take the programme abroad, with location filming occurring in Paris, France. He also made a rare on-screen appearance, as a man leaving a Paris Métro station.

Hayes' directing career wound down during the early Eighties, when he handled episodes of All Creatures Great And Small and Skorpion, as well as the telefilms Tales From The Thousand And One Nights and Nice. He then returned to radio, this time in front of the microphone as a BBC World Service newsreader. Hayes retired in 1994, and he passed away on September 16th, 2014.