Biography
Stage actor/director Arthur Hoyt first stepped before the movie cameras in 1916. During the silent era, Hoyt played sizeable roles in such major productions as
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and
The Lost World (1925). In sound films, he tended to be typecast as a henpecked husband or downtrodden office worker. One of his mostly fondly remembered talkie performances was as befuddled motel-court manager Zeke in
It Happened One Night (1934). Despite advancing age, he was busy in the late 1930s, appearing in as many as 12 pictures per year. In his last active decade, Arthur Hoyt was a member of writer/director
Preston Sturges' unofficial stock company, beginning with
The Great McGinty (1940) and ending with
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide