Arthur Hoyt(1873-1953)
- Actor
- Director
- Casting Director
Extremely prolific actor/director of the silent screen, on Broadway
from 1905. Hoyt joined the acting fraternity through the
recommendations of an uncle, who worked as dramatic editor for a
Cleveland tabloid. Signed by theatrical producer George C. Tyler
(1868-1946), he began on stage (earning $10 per week), playing up to
ten different parts. He made his Hollywood debut in 1916 with
Universal. Short, balding and usually bespectacled, he managed to forge
a 30-year career by playing a succession of 'little men', be they
mild-mannered professors, henpecked husbands or easily intimidated
minor officials. Looking perpetually befuddled was Hoyt's
stock-in-trade. He was particularly effective as Professor Summerlee in
The Lost World (1925) (directed by
his younger brother Harry O. Hoyt), as the
confused motel owner of
It Happened One Night (1934)
and as Mayor Tillinghast in
The Great McGinty (1940). The
better part of Hoyt's screen career, however, consisted of uncredited
bits. For his last seven years in the business (1940-47), he was
regularly employed as a member of
Preston Sturges personal entourage of
stock players at Paramount.
