Douglas Frederick Cornelius Hayward (5 October 193426 April 2008), was an English fashion designer and bespoke tailor, who dressed many famous people during the 1960s. The inspiration for customer Michael Caine's characterisation of his role in the 1966 film Alfie, he was also the model for client John le Carré's Harry Pendel, aka The Tailor of Panama. Early life Born to working-class parents in Kensington, West London, Hayward and his brother grew up in Hayes. His father cleaned heating boilers for the BBC and worked a second job cleaning buses in Uxbridge; while his mother worked during World War II in a munitions factory. Hayward won a scholarship to Southall Grammar School. He had a trial at inside-left for the Middlesex county football team, but lost out to Johnny Haynes, who was also a left footer. Career Hayward left school at 15, looking for a white-collar job: He was apprenticed to a Shepherd's Bush Green tailor who visited the flats in Cadogan Square, where his uncle was a caretaker. During this period he worked a summer in Clacton-on-Sea as a Butlins Redcoat, and after finishing his apprenticeship served his National Service in the Royal Navy, an experience he later admitted got him focused. Returning to civilian life, he continued working for his original employer, but also started after hours work on his own creations. Early clients like Peter Sellers, Terence Stamp and lyricist Herbert Kretzmer, came through his excellent theatrical links at the local theatre, the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, or through his first wife, Diana, sister-in-law of film director Basil Dearden. Unable to gain a cutters job on either Savile Row or even Oxford Street due to his Cockney accent, Hayward then joined fellow showbiz specialist tailor Dimitrio Major, based in Fulham. It was here that he developed a service mentality, driving his Mini Countryman estate car to allow him to attend customers wherever required, including Richard Burton at the Dorchester Hotel. Hayward first set up on his own operating out of a small room in London's Pall Mall, before moving to 95 Mount Street in Mayfair in 1966 where he lived above the shop which soon became a club for his famous clients. In the rear was the cutting room overlooking the Mount Street Gardens. His weekend home was on the Oxfordshire estate of client and friend Lord Hambleden, near Henley on Thames; Described by many as like