John Hoyt

John Hoyt was born on October 5, 1905 in Bronxville, New York, USA as John McArthur Hoysradt.

He first performed comedy routines in nightclubs before making his bow on stage in the late 1920s. He made his Broadway debut followed in 1930 with the play "Overture", under his original name John Hoysradt. He was a member of the Mercury Theater from 1937 until called up for military service in 1945. Thin-lipped and silver-haired hard-case or villain of many a 1960s or 1970s television episode.

In 1937, he performed (as John Hoysradt) at the prestigious Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. He headlined as the Master of Satire.

In his early years of performing, he put together a nightclub act doing impressions of famous celebrities. His impersonation of Noël Coward was so good that he was hired for the original Broadway comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner" in 1939, in which he played Beverley Carlton, a role obviously based on Coward himself.

One of a long list of actors and crew who worked on the film The Conqueror (1956) that passed away from cancer some years later, including John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendáriz, who was the first to contract cancer and committed suicide rather than face the horror of this.

He was an actor and writer, known for Spartacus (1960), When Worlds Collide (1951) and Attack of the Puppet People (1958). He was married to Dorothy Marion Oltman and Marion Virginia Burns.

Had several guest appearances on the situation comedy Hogan's Heroes (1965). He mostly played a high-ranking German Officer in the series, but never the same role twice.

One of the very few actors to have appeared on both the original Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) series and the original series Battlestar Galactica (1978).

His last screen role was as the crusty Grandpa Stanley Kanisky on Nell Carter's situation comedy Gimme a Break! (1981).

John Hoyt passed away on September 15, 1991, only three weeks away from what would have been his 86th birthday on October 5.