John Myhers

John Benjamin Myhers (December 18, 1921 – May 27, 1992) was an American stage, film, and television actor whose career spanned several decades across Broadway, Hollywood, and the small screen. Born in Strum, Wisconsin, he was the son of Ole Myhers (1896–1941) and Mabel (née Borreson) Myhers (1902–1964), who later remarried a man named Hal DeRoach. Myhers began singing at age twelve and, during his student years at McPhail School of Music in St. Paul, won leading roles with the St. Paul Civic Opera.

Following his studies, Myhers served in the United States Armed Forces in Italy during World War II. After the war he remained in Rome for eleven years, during which time he studied at the American Academy and earned a doctoral degree in literature from the University of Rome. His Broadway career ran from 1959 to 1961 and included appearances in the musical The Sound of Music, the play The Good Soup, and the comedy Golden Fleecing. He also performed in Kiss Me Kate on Broadway. Outside of New York, Myhers played Captain Von Trapp in the First National Touring Company of The Sound of Music in the early 1960s, appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn in a Stratford, Connecticut production of Antony and Cleopatra, and shared the stage with actors including Jack Lemmon and Charlton Heston in theatrical productions across the country.

On screen, Myhers accumulated a substantial list of film credits. He played Bert O. Bratt in the 1967 film adaptation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Robert Livingston in the 1972 film adaptation of 1776 — a role he had also performed in the Broadway production — and the leader of the Roman Senate in Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981). Additional film appearances included Quo Vadis, Willard, Weddings and Babies, and several Disney productions: Treasure of Matecumbe, The Shaggy D.A., and Now You See Him, Now You Don't. In 1965, Myhers wrote, directed, and made a cameo appearance in the comedy Saturday Night Bath in Apple Valley, which co-starred his wife Joan Benedict and was later released on VHS and DVD-R by Something Weird Video.

Myhers maintained an equally active television career, with appearances on Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes, The Mothers-in-Law, I Dream of Jeannie, Love American Style, Alice, The Waltons, and Fantasy Island. Beginning in 1959, he provided the voice of Hector Heathcote on The Hector Heathcote Show, a role he continued in a series of animated shorts that ran through 1971. His final acting credit came in 1985, when he appeared in the Twilight Zone episode "Ye Gods."

Myhers married Joan Benedict in 1962, and the couple remained together until his death. He died of pneumonia on May 27, 1992, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, survived by his wife and his daughter Claudia Myhers Tschudin. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.