John Hoyt

63
John Hoyt bigraphy, stories - American actor

John Hoyt : biography

October 5, 1905 – September 15, 1991

John Hoyt (October 5, 1905September 15, 1991) was an American film, stage, and television actor.

Partial filmography

  • O.S.S. (1946) (film debut)
  • My Favorite Brunette (1947)
  • The Unfaithful (1947)
  • Brute Force (1947)
  • To the Ends of the Earth (1948)
  • Winter Meeting (1948)
  • Sealed Verdict (1948)
  • The Bribe (1949)
  • The Lady Gambles (1949)
  • Trapped (1949)
  • Everybody Does It (1949)
  • The Lawless (1950)
  • Quebec (1951)
  • Lost Continent (1951)
  • The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)
  • When Worlds Collide (1951)
  • The Black Castle (1952)
  • Androcles and the Lion (1952)
  • Julius Caesar (1953)
  • Sins of Jezebel (1953)
  • Casanova’s Big Night (1954)
  • The Student Prince (1954)
  • Désirée (1954)
  • The Big Combo (1955)
  • Blackboard Jungle (1955)
  • The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)
  • Moonfleet (1955)
  • Trial (1955)
  • Forever, Darling (1956)
  • The Conqueror (1956)
  • Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
  • Telephone Time (1 episode, 1957)
  • Baby Face Nelson (1957)
  • Attack of the Puppet People (1958)
  • Never So Few (1959)
  • Spartacus (1960)
  • Merrill’s Marauders (1962)
  • Cleopatra (1963)
  • X, also known as X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)
  • The Cage (1964)
  • The Time Travelers (1964)
  • Two on a Guillotine (1965)
  • Operation C.I.A. (1965)
  • Duel at Diablo (1966)
  • Flesh Gordon (1974)
  • The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (film) (1982)
  • Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Death

Hoyt died of lung cancer at the age of eighty-five in 1991 in Santa Cruz, California.

Early life

Hoyt was born John McArthur Hoysradt. Before becoming an actor with Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre, the Yale University graduate worked as a history instructor, acting teacher, and even (under his birth name) a nightclub comedian. In the latter activity, Hoyt performed impressions of famous entertainers. His impersonation of Noël Coward was so remarkable that he was hired for the original cast of the Broadway comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which he played Beverley Carlton. Hoyt soon shortened his surname when he began his movie career.

Television and film

On the silver screen, he played the chillingly strict Principal Warneke in the 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle, with Glenn Ford.

Hoyt made five guest appearances on CBS’s Perry Mason, including the role of defendant Joseph Harrison in the 1958 episode, "The Case of the Prodigal Parent", and as Darwin Norland in the 1963 episode, "The Case of the Libelous Locket." He played an industrialist in the 1951 film, When Worlds Collide. He guest starred on the religion anthology series, Crossroads.

In 1958, Hoyt was cast as rancher Clete Barron in the episode "Trouble in Paradise Valley" of the syndicated western series, Frontier Doctor, with Rex Allen in the starring role as Dr. Bill Baxter.

In 1958 and 1959, Hoyt was cast in two episodes of the CBS crime drama, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, starring David Janssen. He appeared as Burnison in "The George Dale Case" and as Harding, Sr., in "Murder at the Mansion", with James Drury as Harding, Jr.

On November 17, 1959, Hoyt apppeared as the mentally troubled Colonel Brandon in the episode "The General Must Die" on NBC’s Laramie western series. Brian Keith appears with Hoyt in the role of Whit Malone, an old Union Army friend of series character Slim Sherman, portrayed by John Smith. Malone and Brandon arrive at the Sherman Ranch and Relay Station with a daring but foiled plan to assassinate General William Tecumseh Sherman, who passes through the station on a stagecoach. Gilman Rankin makes a cameo appearance as General Sherman, who is unrelated to Slim Sherman but under whom Slim had fought in the American Civil War.