Howard St. John

A stage actor of long standing (he started out in 1925), Howard St. John moved into films with 1949's Shockproof. St. John spent the next twenty years essaying blowhard big-business types like General Bullmoose in Li'l Abner (1959) and Coca-Cola executive J. J. Hazeltine in Billy Wilder's One Two Three. He offered a more three-dimensional characterization as Jim Devery, the well-educated "sellout" flunkey to ruthless junk dealer Broderick Crawford in Born Yesterday (1950). Howard St. John's many TV credits include the roles of journalist Lloyd Prior in the 1958 cop series The Investigator and blustery college dean Lewis Royal on the 1965 sitcom Hank; towards the end of the 1960s, he was seen with increasing frequency in the "Honeymooners" musical sketches on The Jackie Gleason Show.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide