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Elwy Yost

Canadian television personality and writer

Summary

Canadian television personality and writer

Field	Value
name	Elwy Yost
image	ElwyYostimg091.jpg
caption	Yost in 1993
birth_name	Elwy McMurran Yost
birth_date
birth_place	Weston, Ontario, Canada
death_date
death_place	West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
known_for	Passport to Adventure
Magic Shadows
Saturday Night at the Movies
spouse	Lila Ragnhild Melby
years_active	1952–1999
occupation	Television host
children	Christopher and Graham

Magic Shadows Saturday Night at the Movies

Elwy McMurran Yost, (July 10, 1925 – July 21, 2011) was a Canadian television film historian, best known for hosting, for a quarter-century, Saturday Night at the Movies from 1974 to 1999. Earlier in his career, he hosted CBC Television's weekday Passport to Adventure series from 1965 to 1967, and TVOntario's weekday Magic Shadows, in the 1970s and early 1980s.

He was born in the Toronto suburb of Weston, Ontario and had an early exposure to cinema through his family sending him to see movies and report back on the plot. He served in World War II and after the war graduated from the University of Toronto. In the 1950s, he worked at Avro Canada, during the time that CF-105 Arrow program was being developed.

After the Arrow was cancelled, he transitioned to working as a Toronto-area public school teacher in the early 1960s, before switching over to working at CBC Television. He joined the nascent TV Ontario in the early 1970s, where he achieved his greatest fame. When he retired from broadcasting in 1999, he was awarded one of Canada's greatest civil honours, the Order of Canada. In the late 1980s, he and his wife moved to British Columbia, and that is where he died in late July 2011.

Early life

Elway McMurran Yost was born on 10 July 1925 in the Toronto suburb of Weston, Ontario. | access-date = 8 July 2025 |access-date = 7 July 2025 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240627201036/https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/elwy-yost-longtime-tv-host-dies-at-86-1.1055047 |archive-date = June 27, 2024 |url-status = dead | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121025161938/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/former-saturday-night-at-the-movies-host-elwy-yost-dies/article587800/ | archive-date = 25 October 2012 | url-status = dead

He began studies at the University of Toronto in 1943, and studied engineering but left in 1944, after failing his exams, and joined the Canadian Infantry in 1944. He was honorably discharged in September 1945. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in 1948, he worked variously in construction, at the Canadian National Exhibition, made an independent film with a classmate and acted in summerstock theatre. In 1951, he was working in the circulation department of the Toronto Star where he met his future wife, Lila Melby. In 1952 he acted in a small part in the movie Moulin Rouge. He also worked in the Avro Canada personnel department from 1953 until 1959 when he and most of the staff were laid off due to the cancellation of the Avro Arrow project. He then worked as an English and History teacher at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke, Ontario.

Career in television

Through his acting connections, Yost learned that CBC was looking for quiz show panelists. Yost auditioned and, through the 1960s, appeared intermittently on the CBC as a panelist on shows such as Live a Borrowed Life, The Superior Sex and Flashback. | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20250516123152/https://www.queensu.ca/filmandmedia/sites/fmwww/files/uploaded_files/PACIFIC%2013_1.pdf | archive-date = 16 May 2025 | url-status = dead | author-link = Michael Enright (broadcaster) | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160213050049/http://www.cbc.ca/radio/rewind/the-trouble-with-teens-part-two-1.3438598 | archive-date = 13 February 2016 | url-status = live

He joined the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (later TVOntario) in the early 1970s as a manager and, in 1974, was assisting with the establishment of its regional councils, when he was told OECA had acquired the broadcast rights to three Ingmar Bergman films and was asked if he had any ideas on how the station could air them in an educational context. Yost packaged the shows as Three Films in Search of God adding educational content in the form of interviews, introductions, and discussions, thus creating the model for what became Saturday Night at the Movies, which became the channel's longest-running, and one of its most popular, shows. | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121024163211/https://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/1028603--elwy-yost-host-of-saturday-night-at-the-movies-dies-at-85 | archive-date = 24 October 2012 | url-status = dead

The format of Saturday Night at the Movies was that of two movies, separated by in-depth interviews conducted by Yost. | access-date = 8 July 2025 | access-date = 8 July 2025

Yost acknowledged that both his wife Lila and producer Risa Shuman were critical in helping him make the show a success.{{Cite news | access-date = 8 July 2025 | access-date = 8 July 2025

Death

Yost recovered from "a serious operation" he had in 2005, according to his wife, Lila. He died in West Vancouver, British Columbia on July 21, 2011, aged 86.

| access-date = 7 July 2025

Honours

A 1985 short comedy film, Working Title by film students Ken Scott and Fred Jones, featured a character who was an explicit parody of Yost. | access-date = 7 July 2025 | access-date = 7 July 2025 | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20250707172546/https://nowtoronto.com/movies/elwy-yost-1925-2011/ | archive-date = 7 July 2025 | url-status = live | access-date = 7 July 2025 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20211212220030/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/reviews/article-tvo-documentary-magic-shadows-elwy-yost-a-life-in-movies-is-essential/ | archive-date = 12 December 2021 | url-status = live | url-access = subscription

Bibliography

Besides being a TV host, Yost was also a writer of fiction and non-fiction.

Magic Moments from the Movies (1978)
Secrets of the Lost Empire (1980)
Billy and the Bubbleship (1982) *also published as The Mad Queen of Mordra
The Mad Queen of Mordra (1987)
White Shadows: A Novel of Espionage and Adventure (2004)

References

(2002). "Canadian Who's Who". [[University of Toronto Press]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1925-births 2011-deaths canadian-male-novelists canadian-television-hosts canadian-film-historians members-of-the-order-of-canada writers-from-british-columbia novelists-from-toronto university-of-toronto-alumni people-from-west-vancouver 20th-century-canadian-novelists 20th-century-canadian-male-writers canadian-male-non-fiction-writers 21st-century-canadian-novelists 21st-century-canadian-male-writers canadian-mystery-writers tvo-people

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