In 1975, he produced and wrote the teleplay for an unsold comedy pilot called "The Last Detail." The plot concerned two career U.S. Navy enlisted men, one black and one white, who crave civilian life, but need the structure of the military to thrive.
Ayres, when he was working at Columbia Pictures in the late 196os, was responsible for arranging the contract that would bring French auteur director Jacques Demy, recently popular in the US for his musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, to Los Angeles, and in the bargain Demy's wife Agnes Varda who would also work briefly in Hollywood.
I was a Hollywood studio executive. The title which went with the job at Columbia Pictures was vice-president of creative affairs, which someone once pointed out was a pretty fair description of a pimp.
