John Hoyt; Versatile Actor of Stage, Films

John Hoyt, an actor who worked on stage with Katharine Cornell in 1933’s “Alien Corn,” roomed with Orson Welles when the two were working together three years later in the Mercury Theatre, and then appeared as a stylish crook, wanton aristocrat or German militarist in dozens of motion pictures, is dead.

The entertainment trade newspaper Daily Variety reported this week that Hoyt was 87 when he died Sunday at his Santa Cruz home of lung cancer.

He had a lengthy career in theater, films and television--most recently as Grandpa Kaniski in the 1980s series “Gimme a Break.” In a one-man show he staged locally at the New Hope Inn in 1969, he reminisced about his Ziegfeld Follies days with Fanny Brice, his appearances with Helen Morgan, Gertrude Lawrence, Noel Coward on the Broadway stage, and then with Welles’ talented group of Depression-era actors.

Born John Hoysradt, he changed his name in 1945, the year before his first film, “O.S.S.” He went on to roles in more than 60 pictures, among them “The Desert Fox,” “Brute Force,” “Julius Caesar,” “Spartacus,” “The Blackboard Jungle,” “When Worlds Collide,” “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,” “Time Travelers,” “Young Dillinger.”

Even though he had relocated to California for film work, Hoyt continued to appear on stage, particularly in Los Angeles, where he was seen in productions ranging from “Pericles,” “America With Orson, or 50 Is Two Martinis,” and “The Winslow Boy.”

In addition to “Gimme a Break,” his TV work included “Menagerie,” the show that introduced “Star Trek” to the nation, several episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” and a featured role in the 1964 situation comedy “Tom, Dick and Mary.”

Survivors include his wife, Dorothy, and a son, David.