John Hodiak

John Hodiak was an American actor born on April 16, 1914, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Anna (Pogorzelec) and Walter Hodiak. Of Ukrainian and Polish descent, he spent his first eight years in Pittsburgh before his family relocated to Hamtramck, Michigan.

Hodiak's path into performing began in radio, though his initial audition was unsuccessful due to his accent. He worked as a caddie at a Detroit golf course and later at a Chevrolet automobile factory while working to improve his diction. Once he overcame that obstacle, he secured radio acting work and moved to Chicago, where he originated the role of the comic strip character Li'l Abner on radio. He also played McCullough in the radio soap opera Girl Alone.

His film career began at MGM with small parts in A Stranger in Town (1943), I Dood It (1943), and Maisie Goes to Reno (1944), in which he played Ann Sothern's love interest. Director Alfred Hitchcock cast him in Lifeboat (1944) for 20th Century Fox, opposite Tallulah Bankhead, marking a significant step in his career. That same year, MGM placed him in the third lead of Song of Russia (1944), supporting Robert Taylor and Susan Peters, and he appeared in Marriage Is a Private Affair (1944). Fox borrowed him again to play the title role in Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) alongside Anne Baxter, and retained him to portray Maj. Joppolo in A Bell for Adano (1945) with Gene Tierney. At MGM, he appeared as Judy Garland's love interest in The Harvey Girls (1946), and Fox gave him a starring role in Somewhere in the Night (1946), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He also co-starred with Lucille Ball in Two Smart People (1946) and appeared in the film noir The Arnelo Affair (1947).

Hodiak subsequently moved into a period of supporting work across multiple studios. At Paramount, he led Desert Fury (1947) alongside Lizabeth Scott and Burt Lancaster, and he starred in Love from a Stranger (1947) for Eagle Lion. He then supported Lana Turner and Clark Gable in Homecoming (1948) and appeared with Gable again in Command Decision (1948). Despite the commercial success of both Gable films, exhibitors voted him box office poison at the end of 1948. He recovered some ground with a second billing in MGM's war film Battleground (1949), a major hit, and appeared in the popular Malaya (1949) alongside James Stewart and Spencer Tracy. A Western, Ambush (1950), in which he played a love rival to Robert Taylor, also performed well. He co-starred with Hedy Lamarr in A Lady Without Passport (1950) and took supporting roles in The Miniver Story (1950) and Night into Morning (1951). Further supporting parts followed in The People Against O'Hara (1951) with Spencer Tracy and Across the Wide Missouri (1952) with Clark Gable, and he received second billing to Walter Pidgeon in The Sellout (1953).

In 1952, Hodiak made his Broadway debut in The Chase, written by Horton Foote and directed by José Ferrer. Although the production was not a commercial success, Hodiak received positive notices for his performance. He continued working in film during this period, starring in Battle Zone (1952) for Allied Artists and appearing in the Westerns Ambush at Tomahawk Gap (1953) and Conquest of Cochise (1953), as well as the war films Mission Over Korea (1953) and Dragonfly Squadron (1954).

In 1954, Hodiak originated the role of Lieutenant Maryk in Paul Gregory's Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Herman Wouk's stage adaptation of his novel The Caine Mutiny. The production starred Henry Fonda and Lloyd Nolan and ran for two years, with Hodiak's performance earning him considerable acclaim. Following the conclusion of the production's U.S. tour, he returned to film, taking a fourth-billed role as a prosecuting attorney in Trial (1955) at MGM and then playing Major Ward Thomas in On the Threshold of Space (1956) at 20th Century Fox.

In his personal life, Hodiak married actress Anne Baxter on July 7, 1946; the two had met while filming Sunday Dinner for a Soldier. They divorced on January 27, 1953, and had one daughter, Katrina Hodiak, who became an actress. Hodiak died of a heart attack on October 19, 1955, at his parents' home in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 41 years old. He is interred in Block 303, Crypt D-1 of the main mausoleum at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, and he left an estate of $25,000. Hodiak has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard, honoring his work in radio.