Herbert Yost (also credited as Barry O'Moore and Bertram Yost; December 8, 1879October 23, 1945) was an American actor who in a career that spanned nearly half a century performed predominantly on stage in stock companies and in numerous Broadway productions. Yost also acted in motion pictures, mostly in one-reel silent shorts released by the Biograph Company and Edison Studios between November 1908 and July 1915. By the time he began working in the film industry, Yost already had more than a decade of stage experience in hundreds of dramatic and comedic roles and was widely regarded in the theatre community "as one of the country's finest stock actors". Reportedly, to reduce the risk of tarnishing his reputation as a professional actor by being identified as a screen performer, Yost often billed himself as "Barry O'Moore" while working in films. He was ultimately cast in scores of motion pictures in the early silent era, although with the exceptions of appearing in three more films in the sound era, Yost spent the remaining decades of his career acting in major theatre productions, almost exclusively on Broadway.
Early life and early stage career
Born in Harrison, Ohio, in December 1879, Herbert was the youngest of three sons of Angeline Leona (née Bennett) and Peter H. Yost. The following year, the decennial federal census documents the Yost family living in northern Kentucky, in Covington, where Herbert's father owned and operated a prosperous retail grocery and a dry goods store. After working in the family business in his youth, Herbert at age 17 chose to leave home and pursue a career in show business like his older siblings Walter and Harry. Harry, in fact, guided or "sponsored" his little brother's entry into performing on stage by getting Herbert a job in 1897 with the Murray-Hart Comedy Company, which specialized in "one-night stands". In its travels to various cities and towns, that troupe presented single performances of satirical plays such as When London Sleeps and A Life for a Life.
After one full season working for Murray-Hart, Yost joined the Frost Stock Company and did a multitude of jobs in its traveling shows for a salary of six dollars a week ($ today). He portrayed several characters in the company's staging of The Three Musketeers and The Two Orphans, and was responsible as well for entertaining audiences by playing the piano before each show, during intermissions, and giving concerts following every performance. By 1901, Yost had left Frost to work for seven years with a series of other stock companies in Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Toledo, and elsewhere. During that time he was also cast in several Broadway productions. He portrayed, for example, Lieutenant Pierre d'Norville in the 1900 musical farce The Military Maid and the character Jimmy Burnett in the Broadway drama The Measure of a Man at Weber's Music Hall in 1906.
Films
By 1908, with more than a decade of experience traveling and performing with various companies, Yost had established himself a "considerable reputation" as a stage actor. Near the end of that year he began working as well in the rapidly expanding motion-picture industry. At that time, in the opinion of many theatre actors and producers, performing on screen in the new medium of film was an inferior, far less prestigious occupation than acting on stage in the "legitimate" theatre. Yost therefore adopted the name Barry O'Moore during his early years as a film actor to distinguish his screen work from his stage career, allegedly in an effort to conceal his identity and, at least to some degree, to distance himself professionally "from the shame of the cinema". Nevertheless, Yost during the motion-picture portion of his career was not credited as Barry O'Moore in all of his films or referred to consistently as O'Moore in studio production records or in release advertisements in either the silent or sound eras. Yet, outside the film industry, in the realm of theatre, he was invariably credited for decades as Herbert Yost in his many Broadway roles and in other stage productions.