The book became a best seller. But when Hays tries to say what drove him to write it, he explains it as a matter of compulsion, not of choice.

“Sailors can’t help but write,” he says.

The success of My Old Man and the Sea brought Hays a new career in writing. In 2001 he published his second book, Today I am a Boy, detailing the renewal of his Jewish faith when he studied for his bar-mitzvah at the age of 66.

Among his many awards for lifelong work, including the National Governors’ Arts Award in 1992, Hays said he takes most pride in his Harvard Arts Medal. He received the medal in 1999, the fifth recipient of an award that honors distinguished Harvard alumni who achieve excellence in the arts and achieve public good through their artistic endeavors.

With the award, he joined illustrious company—before him, it had gone to John Updike ’54, Bonnie Raitt ’72, Pete Seeger ’40 and Jack Lemmon ’47.

And an exhibit this spring at the Harvard Theatre Collection featured Hays as one of several alumni who have led lives as designers for the stage—a profession that, looking back, he feels was his true calling.

“I love to design,” he says. “I didn’t have a choice. You just do what comes your way.”

—Staff writer Anat Maytal can be reached at maytal@fas.harvard.edu.