Harold Hayes; Former Esquire, California Editor

Harold Hayes, former editor of Esquire and California magazines, died Wednesday of a brain tumor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 62.

It was Hayes, a contributor to numerous magazines and a figure in the “new journalism” school, who developed Esquire’s “Dubious Achievements” feature--an outgrowth of his “The Worst of Everything” article that got him fired earlier from a small Atlanta, Ga., publication called Picture Week.

He had gone to Picture Week after quitting as associate editor at Pageant magazine following a disagreement with the editor.

Hayes, who was born in Elkin, N.C., and raised in Winston-Salem, N.C., went to Wake Forest University and subsequently was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

He was a reporter with the Atlanta bureau of United Press in 1949 and 1950.

Hayes joined Esquire in 1955, serving as articles editor, managing editor, editor and assistant publisher before leaving in 1973. While there, he edited such writers as Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Dan Wakefield and Terry Southern.

He noted later in an article in The New Republic that Esquire was revitalized by bringing back the older writers, like Dorothy Parker and John Steinbeck, while enticing such contemporary authors as Gore Vidal and William Styron to contribute.

“Nobody enjoyed reading it more than we did,” Hayes said, “and by God . . . the money was rolling in.”

In 1974 and 1975 he was host of “Roundtable,” a daily interview program on WNET-TV in New York. He also was a senior editorial producer of the ABC television magazine “20/20” in 1978.

In 1981, he took over as editorial vice president of CBS magazines. He moved west in 1984 to become editor of California magazine, a position he held through 1987.

In addition to writing for numerous magazines, Hayes was the author of two books, “The Last Place on Earth” (1977) and “Three Levels of Time” (1981). He also edited several other books.

At the time of his death he was working on a biography of naturalist Dian Fossey, about whom he had written in Life magazine and who was the subject of the film “Gorillas in the Mist.”

Hayes leaves his wife, Judy, of Los Angeles, as well as two children from an earlier marriage: Carrie Meredith O’Brien of Luxembourg and Thomas Pace Hayes of New York City. He also leaves a granddaughter, a brother and a sister.

Services will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church.

The family has suggested contributions to the African Wildlife Foundation, 1717 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C., 20036.