Arthur Hoyt

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Arthur Hoyt bigraphy, stories - Actor

Arthur Hoyt : biography

March 19, 1874 – January 4, 1953

Arthur Hoyt (19 March 1874–4 January 1953) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 275 films in his 34 year film career, about a third of them silent films. He was a brother of Harry O. Hoyt who directed the first The Lost World(1925), and a film in which Arthur co-starred.

Selected filmography

Silent
  • The Scrub Lady (1914)
  • The Heart of a Show Girl (1916)
  • The Grim Game (1919)
  • The Girl in Number 29 (1920)
  • The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
  • Camille (1921)
  • Red Courage (1921)
  • Love is an Awful Thing (1922)
  • Love Piker (1923)
  • Souls for Sale (1923)
  • The White Flower (1923)
  • Dangerous Blonde (1924)
  • Private Affairs (1925)
  • The Coming of Amos (1925)
  • The Lost World (1925)
  • Crown of Lies 1926)
  • Footloose Widows (1926)
  • Up in Mabel’s Room (1926)
  • For Wives Only (1926)
  • That Model from Paris (1926)
  • Midnight Sun (1926)
  • Eve’s Leaves (1926)
  • An Affair of the Follies (1927)
  • Husbands for Rent (1927)
  • The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary (1927)
  • The Rush Hour (1928)
Sound
  • My Man (1928)
  • The Wheel of Life (1929)
  • Her Private Affair (1930)
  • The Life of the Party (1930)
  • Take ’em and Shake ’em (1931)
  • Impatient Maiden (1932)
  • American Madness (1932)
  • Dynamite Ranch (1932)
  • Love in High Gear (1932)
  • Vanity Street (1932)
  • The Crusader (1932)
  • Goldie Gets Along (1933)
  • His Private Secretary (1933)
  • A Shriek in the Night (1933)
  • In the Money (1934)
  • It Happened One Night (1934)
  • Kansas City Princess (1934)
  • Springtime for Henry (1934)
  • Marrying Widows (1934)
  • 1,000 Dollars a Minute (1935)
  • Poor Little Rich Girl (1936)
  • Ever Since Eve (1937)
  • Paradise Express (1937)
  • Girls on Probation (1938)
  • The Great McGinty (1940)
  • Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
  • The Palm Beach Story (1942)
  • Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
  • The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)

Notes

Career

Born in Georgetown, Colorado in 1874, Hoyt made his Broadway debut in 1905 in a play The Prince Consort, which was not a success. He also appeared in Ferenc Molnár’s The Devil in 1908, and made his final stand on the Great White Way in The Great Name in 1911.

Hoyt made one silent movie in 1914, a comedy short called The Scrub Lady, but his film acting career did not begin in earnest until 1916 when he appeared in another short, The Heart of a Show Girl. From that time until 1944, not a year passed without a film being released that Hoyt had acted in – and frequently a number of them, up to a dozen or so. Hoyt had large roles in such silent films as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Souls for Sale (1923), and The Lost World (1925). He also directed two silent features, Station Content starring Gloria Swanson and High Stakes, and was the casting director for another, Her American Husband, all in 1918.

Hoyt’s final silent film, his 80th, was The Rush Hour (1928), which starred Marie Provost. Unlike her, Hoyt survived the transition to talkies, although he generally played much smaller roles in sound films – the 5’6" Hoyt was often cast as a beleaguered husband, an exploited nine-to-fiver or a nervous politicianErickson, Hal Edwards, Robert – and he frequently did not receive screen credit for his performances. His first sound film was 1928’s My Man, a musical starring Fanny Brice, and the pace of his work did not slack off in the sound era. He may be best remembered as the motor-court manager who hassles Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934).

In the 1940s, when he was nearing the end of his career, Hoyt was part of Preston Sturges’ unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in all the films written and directed by Sturges from 1940 to 1947.Hoyt appeared in The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Great Moment and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. Earlier, he had also appeared in Easy Living (1937), which Sturges wrote.

At the age of 70, Hoyt, who was sometimes billed as "Mr. Arthur Hoyt", retired from acting. The last film he appeared in, Sturges’ The Sin of Harold Diddlebock was filmed in late 1944 and early 1945, although it wasn’t released until 1947. (Notes) Hoyt died at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California on 4 January 1953, and is buried at Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, California.