ACTOR WHO PLAYED AN ADDICT DIES, APPARENTLY OF OVERDOSE

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James Hayden, an acclaimed young actor who was portraying a drug addict in the Broadway play ''American Buffalo,'' died yesterday, apparently of a heroin overdose, the police said.

Mr. Hayden's death, coming six hours after he had received a standing ovation for his performance as Bobby in David Mamet's play, typified the contradictions in the 29-year-old, his closest friends said. He was reaching stardom while struggling to escape the street life of his past, a past of which few colleagues knew.

Mr. Hayden had dedicated his performances in both ''American Buffalo'' and last season's ''A View From the Bridge'' to Michael T. Kuhul, a friend and roommate who died of a heroin overdose in 1981.

Mr. Hayden had lived on the street as a teen-ager, according to friends, and he won admission to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts without any prior acting experience.

His performance as Bobby had struck a variety of critics as exceptionally - and now chillingly - accurate.

''The young actor skillfully shows us a drug addict's weaving gait and unfocused expression,'' Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times in reviewing ''American Buffalo.'' Douglas Watt, in The Daily News, hailed ''the ghastly wreck of a youth, superbly set forth by James Hayden.'' On the day before Mr. Hayden was found dead in his Upper West Side apartment, his publicity agent, Jeffrey Richards, sent a promotional letter to newspapers that said in part: ''Hayden says he's met a lot of 'Bobbys' in his life. He's grateful to have avoided the pitfalls of actually becoming another New York casualty.''

That Mr. Hayden apparently became precisely such a casualty shocked his friends and co-workers.

''I don't know what could prompt him to put a needle in his arm,'' said Alan Feinstein, who acted in ''A View From the Bridge.''

'' 'Buffalo' was his second show on Broadway in eight months. He had a movie coming out with De Niro. He should've been on top of the world.''

''But people do send signals,'' said J. J. Johnston, who appeared with Mr. Hayden and Al Pacino in ''American Buffalo,'' ''and I guess no one picked up on them.''

One of Mr. Hayden's closest friends said the actor had been seeing a psychiatrist to deal with depression. In the last year, Mr. Hayden had been estranged from his wife, Barbara, who now lives in California.

Mr. Hayden was talking to his wife on the telephone at 4:30 A.M. yesterday, the police said, when his voice suddenly ceased. Mrs. Hayden immediately called his New York physician, Dr. Jacob Sperber, and he called the 911 emergency number, the police said. Mrs. Hayden declined through friends to comment today and Dr. Sperber did not return telephone messages.

The police said they discovered Mr. Hayden's body fully clothed, slumped over the kitchen sink, telephone in hand, in his 14th-floor apartment at Broadway and 69th Street. On the kitchen floor, they said, was a hypodermic needle and three or four glassine envelopes that they believe contained heroin. Mr. Hayden was pronounced dead at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. An autopsy was to be conducted late last night. ''American Buffalo'' went on last night with John Shepard, Mr. Hayden's understudy.

Mr. Hayden's life had taken him from a troubled childhood in Brooklyn to the verge of stardom. He ran away from his home in Bay Ridge when he was 14, said Michael Urban, a friend who was a member of the crew of ''American Buffalo,'' and he occasionally supported himself by singing in Herald Square.

''Jimmy was looking for stability,'' Mr. Urban said, and so Mr. Hayden enlisted in the Army in 1970, at the age of 17. Instead, he encountered drugs while serving in Vietnam. ''I saw a lot of soldiers come home with drug problems,'' Mr. Hayden said in an interview last week with The Daily News. ''I've always believed that the real casualty of the war was increased drug abuse.''

Shortly after his discharge in 1972, Mr. Hayden auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan with a speech from Tennessee Williams's ''Glass Menagerie.'' He graduated from the academy in 1976, and went on to study under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, leaving memories of talent and frailty.

''He wanted to be an actor,'' said Marie Hawthorne, a faculty member at the academy, ''because he wanted to be anyone but himself. He always felt, even in the middle of the crowd, very much alone. And so for every play he was in, that was his life, his family. And if people applauded, he felt loved.''

Arvin Brown, who directed both of Mr. Hayden's Broadway plays, also noticed his sensitivity. ''If someone looked at him cross-eyed,'' Mr. Brown said, ''he could be upset for hours.''

What upset Mr. Hayden most, friends said, was the death in 1981 of Mr. Kuhul, a friend since childhood. Mr. Hayden discovered his friend's body in the East Village apartment they shared. It took friends a year, they said, to persuade Mr. Hayden to move to a new high-rise on Broadway.

His career, however, thrived. Mr. Hayden was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance as Rodolpho in ''A View From the Bridge,'' acted in films and was hailed by Mr. Brown as ''probably the best young actor I've ever worked with.''

Yet, professionally and personally, Mr. Hayden returned to his past. He gave money, food and clothes to homeless people, and sometimes let them shower in his apartment, Mr. Urban recalled. He wandered through the drug- selling zones of the Lower East Side, his publicity agent said, and attended meetings of Narcotics Anonymous to prepare for playing Bobby in ''American Buffalo.''

Few friends, however, believe Mr. Hayden's heroin use was also part of immersing himself in his character.