CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Screenwriter John Michael Hayes, nominated for Academy Awards for the classic films “Rear Window” and “Peyton Place,” has died at age 89.

Hayes, who was involved in Dartmouth College’s film studies program, died of natural causes Nov. 19 at the Kendal at Hanover, a retirement community in Hanover, John Wilson of Rand Wilson Funeral Home said Monday.

In addition to “Rear Window,” he collaborated with famed director Alfred Hitchcock on “To Catch a Thief,” “The Trouble with Harry” and the 1956 remake of Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” His most recent writing credit is the 1998 film “Iron Will.”

Hayes was born in Worcester, Mass., in 1919. He got his start writing for newspapers and radio. After paying his way through school at Massachusetts State College, Hayes moved to Hollywood. There he landed a job writing for Lucille Ball’s radio program “My Favorite Husband” and the serial drama “The Adventures of Sam Spade.”

His radio work caught the attentions of Universal Studios, which hired him as a screenwriter in the early 1950s.

Hayes donated his collection of scripts, photographs, letters and clippings from his Hollywood career to Dartmouth College in 1990.


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