David Hoyt Canary

 David Hoyt Canary (August 25, 1938 – November 16, 2015)

Canary was best known for his role as ranch foreman Candy Canaday in the NBC Western drama Bonanza, and as Adam Chandler in the television soap opera All My Children, for which he received sixteen Daytime Emmy Award nominations and won five times. A native of Elwood, Indiana, Canary played offensive and defensive end for the Massillon Tigers of Washington High School before earning a football scholarship to the University of Cincinnati. He graduated with a major in music. Instead of accepting an offer to turn pro with the American Football League’s Denver Broncos in its first year, Canary went to New York to pursue acting, and he made his Broadway debut in Great Day in the Morning in 1962 opposite Colleen Dewhurst. After two years in the U.S. Army, Canary came to Los Angeles and appeared in Hombre (1967) with Paul Newman, as a mobster in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) with Jason Robards and in Sharks' Treasure (1975) with Cornel Wilde. He also drew attention for playing Mia Farrow’s physical therapist Russ Gehring in the hugely popular ABC nighttime soap Peyton Place. Canary also played shrewd businessman Steve Frame on the NBC soap opera Another World from 1981 until 1983, when his character was killed off in a car crash, before joining All My Children. Canary also appeared on Broadway in 1980 in Tennessee Williams’ final play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, opposite Geraldine Page. He was married twice, and had two children with his second wife. Canary died on November 16, 2015, of natural causes in Wilton, Connecticut at the age of 77.