John Hodiak

 John Hodiak (April 16, 1914 – October 19, 1955)

Hodiak had his first theatrical experience at age 11, acting in Ukrainian and Russian plays at the Ukrainian Catholic Church. From the moment he first appeared on the stage, he resolved to become an actor. Hodiak was not even swayed when as a third baseman on his local high school baseball team, he was offered a contract with a St. Louis Cardinals farm club. He turned the offer down. When Hodiak first tried out for a radio acting job, he was turned down because of his accent. He became a caddie at a Detroit golf course, then worked at a Chevrolet automobile factory – and practiced his diction. When he conquered the diction hurdle, he became a radio actor and moved to Chicago. Hodiak arrived in Hollywood in 1942 and signed a motion picture contract with MGM. He refused to change his name, saying, "I like my name. It sounds like I look." Hodiak was cast in a few small parts at MGM. He then caught the eye of director Alfred Hitchcock and, on loan-out to 20th Century Fox, emerged as a major movie star in Lifeboat (1944) opposite Tallulah Bankhead.

More big roles followed, notably that of Maj. Joppolo in A Bell For Adano (1945) opposite Gene Tierney. Despite his success, in 1949, a string of bad choices of films led to Hodiak being voted "box office poison" by exhibitors. In 1953, he played the Apache chief Cochise in the film Conquest of Cochise, with Robert Stack, Rico Alaniz, and Carol Thurston. At the age of 41, Hodiak suffered a fatal heart attack in the bathroom of the Tarzana, California home he had built for his parents. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.