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Following his death, he was interred next to Frank Zappa at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Zappa's grave is unmarked but to the right of Ayres.

Died in his sleep after being in a coma for several days.

He was a conscientious objector during World War II, which made him rather unpopular at the studio.

Big Band musician before becoming an actor. His instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar.

In 1960, MGM toyed with the idea of doing an all-male remake of 1939's The Women which would have been entitled, Gentlemen's Club. Like the female version, this would have involved an all masculine cast and the plot would have involved a man (Jeffrey Hunter) who recently discovers among his comrades that his wife is having an affair with another man (Earl Holliman) and after going to Reno to file for divorce and begin a new life, he later finds himself doing what he can to rectify matters later on when he discovers that the other man is only interested in money and position and he decides to win his true love back again. Although nothing ever came of this, it would have consisted of the following ensemble had it did: Jeffrey Hunter (Martin Heal), Earl Holliman (Christopher Allen), Tab Hunter (Simon Fowler), Lew Ayres (Count Vancott), Robert Wagner (Mitchell Aarons), James Garner (Peter Day), Jerry Mathers (Little Martin), James Stewart (Mr. Heal), Ronald Reagan (Larry), Troy Donahue (Norman Blake), and Stuart Whitman (Oliver, the bartender who spills the beans about the illicit affair).

To me, war was the greatest sin. I couldn't bring myself to kill other men.

[on the closing scene in All Quiet on the Western Front, in 1984]: And everyone remembers that, they always say to me: "Oh, but I remember the butterfly scene!" I kind of analyzed why they remember that so well and it seemed to be that in a subliminal way, in a kind of another sense, the butterfly, which emerges from being only a caterpillar, is a little bit like - maybe they don't think that way - men reaching for his soul.

I never had a great talent, but I suppose I must have had something to hang around for 50 years. I don't have any proclivity for acting. It was always difficult for me to learn my lines, which is something that should come easily to any actor.

I considered myself a Hollywood success, but there was something wrong with that success. I had everything, yet I had nothing. I had my books, my home, my companions, my music. But somehow, I was lonely."

I've always tried to make characters real and vulnerable. How I do this I'd be hard-pressed to say, but when you do achieve it, when you are totally credible, the audience can forget itself and live through you on the screen. An audience needs to forget itself, if only for a little while.