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John Alvin
John Alvin, born John Alvin Hoffstadt was an American film, stage and television actor. Alvin was signed with Warner Brothers Studios for an exclusive four-year contract during the World War II era, although he was "borrowed" by 20th Century Fox to appear in 1944's Oscar-nominated The Fighting Sullivans. He appeared in more than 25 Warner Brothers films during this time, including Northern Pursuit (which starred Errol Flynn), The Beast with Five Fingers, The Very Thought of You, and Objective, Burma!. His pictures after the contract period included Irma la Douce, Inside Daisy Clover, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie. However, it was his role in the 1943 film Destination Tokyo, in which he co-starred with John Garfield and Cary Grant, that left the largest impression on Alvin. Years later, in a 2006 interview, Alvin credited Grant with having a major impact on his career path: "I learned more about show business from him than from anyone. He was very attentive and helpful."
Alvin later enjoyed a separate television career, which spanned from the 1950s to the 1980s. His television credits included various roles on Leave It to Beaver, All in the Family, Lou Grant, Dragnet, General Hospital, Murder, She Wrote, Starsky and Hutch, The Incredible Hulk and I Spy. Alvin's also appeared in numerous television commercials advertising for such products as Mattel, H&R Block, McDonald's, Porsche and Audi.
Alvin's theater repertoire included Send Me No Flowers, The Student Prince, The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and The Cradle Will Rock. He also appeared in a production of Rain, which was directed by Charlie Chaplin.
He largely retired from acting in the 1990s; his final film appearance was in 1994's Milk Money. During his retirement, Alvin often showed his movies for audiences at the Conejo Valley Senior Concerns, an organization for senior citizens based in Thousand Oaks, California.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 4.759 |
Birthday | 1917-10-24 |
Place of Birth | Chicago, Illinois, USA |
Also Known As | John Alvin Hoffstadt, |
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1946
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Three Strangers
6.4/36
On the eve of the Chinese New Year, three strangers, Crystal Shackleford, married to a wealthy philanderer; Jerome Artbutny, an outwardly respectable...
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Three Strangers
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1947
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The Beast with Five Fingers
6.3/46
Locals in an Italian village believe evil has taken over the estate of a recently deceased pianist where murder has taken place. The alleged killer: t...
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The Beast with Five Fingers
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1952
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April in Paris
4.9/8
A series of misunderstandings leads to a chorus girl traveling to Paris to represent the American theater, where she falls in love with a befuddled bu...
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April in Paris
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1947
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Cheyenne
6.8/9
Slick gambler James Wylie is apprehended by the law and given the option to forgo a prison sentence if he poses as a bandit. His mission is to uncover...
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Cheyenne
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1945
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Objective, Burma!
6.8/83
A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish t...
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Objective, Burma!
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1944
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The Fighting Sullivans
6.2/19
The lives of a close-knit group of brothers growing up in Iowa during the days of the Great Depression and of World War II and their eventual deaths i...
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The Fighting Sullivans
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1946
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Shadow of a Woman
4.2/10
Brooke's marital life with Eric takes a downturn when she starts suspecting that her husband is starving his son from a prior marriage to death in ord...
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Shadow of a Woman
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1951
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Missing Women
6.2/6
A woman becomes desperate to find a pair of car thieves after her husband -- while on their honeymoon -- is killed during a robbery.
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Missing Women

1950
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This Side of the Law
4.8/14
A man - trapped in a cistern - reflects on the dark events that lead to his lonely entrapment. Told in flashback, we witness his chance encounter with...
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This Side of the Law
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1964
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Marnie
7.1/1127
Marnie is a thief, a liar, and a cheat. When her new boss, Mark Rutland, catches on to her routine kleptomania, she finds herself being blackmailed.
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Marnie

1948
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Open Secret
6.5/6
A couple discovers that their friend has gone missing. Their investigation leads them to believe that anti-semites are behind the disappearance.
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Open Secret

1943
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Northern Pursuit
5.9/17
Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the...
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Northern Pursuit
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1976
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The Quest: The Longest Drive
5/6
To save an old friend's ranch, the Beaudine brothers round up a gang of misfits to drive a huge herd to market.
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The Quest: The Longest Drive
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1948
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Train to Alcatraz
6/1
Criminals aboard a train to the infamous penitentiary plot an escape, and receive outside help in their attempt.
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Train to Alcatraz
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1955
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The McConnell Story
6.3/3
Joe McConnell was sure that he was meant to be a pilot, but was stuck as a restless army private. It seemed that his ambition was blocked at every ste...
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The McConnell Story

1955
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A Bullet for Joey
5.5/25
Raoul Leduc is a police inspector trailing a spy who plots to kidnap an important American atomic scientist. Joe Victor a gangster who is hired to car...
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A Bullet for Joey
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1975
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The Legend of Lizzie Borden
6.7/29
A dramatization of the famous 1893 Massachusetts trial of the woman accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an ax.
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The Legend of Lizzie Borden

1944
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The Very Thought of You
6.2/9
Army sergeants Dave and "Fixit" spend a three-day pass in Pasadena, where they meet Janet and Cora, two young women who work in a parachute factory.
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The Very Thought of You

1955
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Illegal
6.4/40
A hugely successful DA goes into private practice after sending a man to the chair -- only to find out later he was innocent. Now the drunken attorney...
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Illegal
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1951
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The Unknown Man
4.8/13
A scrupulously honest lawyer discovers that the client he's gotten off was really guilty.
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The Unknown Man

1990
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Return to Green Acres
2.5/2
Tv movie that reunites most the show's cast members. The Douglases move back to New York. But when Haney tries to get everyone's property so that a de...
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Return to Green Acres

1948
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Rocky
0/0
Out fishing one day, painter John Hammond and his son Chris come across Bert Hillman, the foreman of a local ranch. He and his ranch hand are searchin...
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Rocky

1952
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Carrie
6.4/37
Carrie's dreams of adventure in the big city are quickly squashed as she discovers all that awaits her there is a bleak life of grueling and poorly pa...
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Carrie
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1945
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San Antonio
5.7/17
Rancher Clay Hardin arrives in San Antonio to search for and capture Roy Stuart, notorious leader of a gang of cattle rustlers. The vicious outlaw is...
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San Antonio
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1954
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Deep in My Heart
6.8/16
Biographic movie about the American composer Sigmund Romberg.
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Deep in My Heart

1987
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Dennis the Menace
5.2/9
While digging in his front garden, Dennis finds a big bone. To prove it's from a dinosaur, he persuades his father to invite an old buddy of him, Bowe...
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Dennis the Menace
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1980
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Somewhere in Time
7.493/587
Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to fi...
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Somewhere in Time
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1984
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Passions
5.7/3
A man with a wife and daughter also has a son with another woman. When he dies this little secret is revealed to the wife. She then sets out to make h...
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Passions

1971
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Sweet, Sweet Rachel
6.3/6
An ESP expert uses his powers to try to track down a psychic who uses telepathy to commit murder.
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Sweet, Sweet Rachel
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1947
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Stallion Road
5/1
A veterinarian and a novelist compete for the heart of a lady rancher.
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Stallion Road

1947
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Under Colorado Skies
0/0
Monte Hale has been working as a teller in a Texas bank during the summer to earn money for his medical college expenses during the upcoming year. He...
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Under Colorado Skies

1948
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The Bold Frontiersman
0/0
Rocky Lane and his horse Black Jack must protect the gold which drought bedeviled ranchers have raised to build a dam from bad guy Smiling Jim.
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The Bold Frontiersman
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1956
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Kentucky Rifle
5.1/7
A man escorts a wagon load of Kentucky rifles through Indian territory and must find a way to get through without losing the rifles to the Indians. Un...
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Kentucky Rifle

1947
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Deep Valley
5.8/20
A shy California farm girl falls head-over-heels in love with Barry Burnett, a fugitive from a chain gang building a road through the wilderness.
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Deep Valley
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1948
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Two Guys from Texas
6/1
Two vaudevillians on the run from crooks try to pass themselves off as cowboys.
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Two Guys from Texas

1948

The Shanghai Chest
6.1/5
Charlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites, and all three victims were connected...
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The Shanghai Chest
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1952
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The Iron Mistress
4.8/11
In this biopic, Jim Bowie goes to New Orleans, where he falls for Judalon and befriends her brother, Narcisse. Soon, Jim is forced to avenge Narcisse'...
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The Iron Mistress

1994
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Milk Money
6.4/279
Three young boys pool their money and pay V, a kindhearted prostitute, to strip for them. Afterward, she drives them home to the suburbs -- but then h...
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Milk Money

1950

The Breaking Point
7.1/78
A fisherman with money problems hires out his boat to transport criminals.
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The Breaking Point

1950

Pretty Baby
6/4
A young woman living in Manhattan pretends to be the mother of an infant in order to get a seat on the subway.
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Pretty Baby

1949
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The Fountainhead
6.9/144
An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to...
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The Fountainhead
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1950
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Bright Leaf
5.9/16
Two tobacco growers battle for control of the cigarette market.
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Bright Leaf
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1954
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The Shanghai Story
4.8/9
Shanghai, China. The last expatriate Westerners still living in the city are imprisoned in a hotel by the communist authorities in order to find the s...
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The Shanghai Story
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1951
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Come Fill the Cup
7/5
Alcoholic newspaperman Lew Marsh hits bottom, loses his job and is rehabilitated by Charley Dolan. After six years on the wagon he gets his job back a...
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Come Fill the Cup
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1948
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Romance on the High Seas
6.7/29
Georgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself while she secretly stays home to catch her husband che...
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Romance on the High Seas
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1963
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Irma la Douce
7.4/421
When a naive policeman falls in love with a prostitute, he doesn’t want her seeing other men and creates an alter ego who’s to be her only customer.
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Irma la Douce
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1943
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Destination Tokyo
6.7/62
During World War II, Captain Cassidy and his crew of submariners are ordered into Tokyo Bay on a secret mission. They are to gather information in adv...
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Destination Tokyo
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1947
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Love and Learn
5.5/2
A wealthy socialite bored with her life meets and falls in love with a struggling songwriter on the verge of leaving New York and quitting the music b...
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Love and Learn
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1976
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Crackle of Death
6/1
The first of two Kolchak: The Night Stalker compilation TV films. It combines two episodes of the Kolchak TV series, Firefall (about the ghost of an a...
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Crackle of Death
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1971
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The Organization
5.9/46
After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, t...
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The Organization
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1968
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The Legend of Lylah Clare
6.1/23
A dictatorial film director hires an unknown actress to play the lead role in a planned movie biography of a late, great Hollywood star.
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The Legend of Lylah Clare
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1947
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Nora Prentiss
6.1/21
Quiet, organised Dr Talbot meets nightclub singer Nora Prentiss when she is slightly hurt in a street accident. Despite her misgivings they become hea...
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