John Hoyt

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

Hoyt was born John McArthur Hoysradt in Bronxville, New York, the son of Warren J. Hoysradt, an investment banker, and his wife, Ethel Hoysradt, née Wolf. He attended the Hotchkiss School and Yale University, where he served on the editorial board of campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He obtained a bachelor's and a master's degree from the latter school. He worked as a history instructor at the Groton School for two years.

Hoyt performed with several regional theater groups, before joining Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre in 1933; he remained a member of the latter until he moved to Hollywood in 1945.

Under his birth name, he also worked as a standup nightclub comedian, sometimes both acting and doing comedy on the same day. 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.

He made his Broadway debut in 1931 in William Bolitho's play Overture. Other Broadway credits include: Miracle at Verdun (1930), Lean Harvest (1931), Clear All Wires (1932), Valley Forge (1934), Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 (1935), The Masque of Kings (1936), Storm Over Patsy (1936), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), Julius Caesar (1937), Fledgling (1940) and 'Allah Be Praised! (1943).

Hoyt shortened his surname in 1945, the year before his film debut in O.S.S. He played the strict Principal Warneke in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford. He played an industrialist in the 1951 film When Worlds Collide. Hoyt appeared in one Shakespearean film, MGM's Julius Caesar, reprising the role of Decius Brutus (a.k.a. Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus), whom he had played in the 1937 Mercury Theatre production. In 1953, he portrayed Elijah in the biblical film Sins of Jezebel.

Regular cast roles

Hoyt played Colonel Barker in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Grandpa Stanley Kanisky, Dolph Sweet's on-screen father, in Gimme a Break!, J.L. Patterson in Hey, Mulligan. Martin Peyton in Return to Peyton Place, and Dr. Kievoy in Tom, Dick and Mary.

Guest appearances

In the western TV series Gunsmoke, in an episode titled "Bureaucrat" that aired on March 16, 1957, John Hoyt played the part of Rex Propter, a government agent sent to Dodge City, Kansas, in order to try to discover why it had such a bad reputation for gun violence.

Hoyt made five guest appearances on CBS's Perry Mason, including in the role of defendant Joseph Harrison in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Prodigal Parent", as the title character and defendant William Harper Caine in the 1961 episode "The Case of the Resolute Reformer," and as Darwin Norland in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Libelous Locket."

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.

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

On November 17, 1959, Hoyt appeared as the mentally troubled Colonel Brandon in the episode "The General Must Die" on NBC's Laramie western series.

Hoyt was cast as Antoine Rigaud in the 1959 episode "About Roger Mowbray" of another NBC western series, Riverboat.

In 1959, Hoyt was cast as John Cavanagh in "The Mourning Cloak" episode of the ABC/Warner Brothers crime drama Bourbon Street Beat. About this time, he also guest-starred on the ABC/WB western series The Alaskans and in Grant Sullivan's syndicated western series Pony Express. Also in 1959, Hoyt was cast in an episode ("Three Legged Terror") of The Rifleman. He played Gus Fremont, the cruel uncle of Johnny Clover as portrayed by Dennis Hopper.

In 1960 and 1961, he appeared in the episodes "Burnett's Woman" and "The Salvation of Killer McFadden" of another ABC-WB dramatic series, The Roaring 20s.

Hoyt guest-starred on at least three CBS sitcoms, Bringing Up Buddy, Hogan's Heroes, and Petticoat Junction. He was cast as Dr. Philip Boyce in the pilot episode of NBC's Star Trek ("The Cage"). Hoyt appeared twice during the second season of The Twilight Zone, in the episodes "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" and "The Lateness of the Hour." He also appeared as the KAOS agent Conrad Bunny in the Get Smart episode "Our Man in Toyland", as General Beeker in ABC's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Hail to the Chief," and as Dr. Mendoza in NBC's The Monkees episode "I Was a Teenage Monster." He guest- starred as Col. Hollis in the Beverly Hillbillies' Season 4, Episode 14 "Military School".

In early 1966, Hoyt appeared in an episode of The Outer Limits entitled "The Bellero Shield". He played the role of an extraterrestrial with large eyes who says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak." Less than two weeks after the episode's broadcast, alleged alien abductees Betty and Barney Hill provided a description of their alien abductors. Skeptic Martin Kottmeyer notes that the description is notably similar to Hoyt's appearance as the extraterrestrial on the show.

He was also a guest player in an episode of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show on CBS. Because of his stern demeanor, the writers had him play opposite to the befuddled way strangers usually reacted to Gracie Allen's convoluted behavior. In the teleplay, Hoyt simply would not tolerate Gracie's antics and immediately removed himself from the room—twice.

He was married to Dorothy Oltman Haveman.

Hoyt died of lung cancer at the age of eighty-five in 1991 in Santa Cruz, California. He was survived by his wife, a son, a stepson and ten grandchildren.