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Died 31 October 1955, New York City, New York, United States | ||
Julia Hoyt (September 15, 1897 – October 31, 1955) was an American actress on stage and in silent films.
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Early life
Julia Wainwright Robbins was born in 1897, the daughter of Julian W. Robbins and Sarah G. Jewett Robbins. Her grandfather Hugh J. Jewett was president of the Erie Railroad and a congressman from Ohio.
Career
Julia Robbins performed on stage as a debutante, in charity entertainments. Films she appeared in included The Wonderful Thing (1921) with Norma Talmadge, The Man Who Found Himself (1925), and Camille (1926). During World War I, she lent her image and name to an American Red Cross campaign for the employment of disabled veterans.
On Broadway, she was in a revival of The Squaw Man (1921) by Edwin Milton Royle, Rose Briar (1922–23) by Booth Tarkington, The Virgin of Bethulia (1925) by Gladys Buchanan Unger, The School for Scandal (1925), The Pearl of Great Price (1926), The Dark (1927), Mrs. Dane's Defense (1928), Within the Law (1928) by Bayard Veiller, Sherlock Holmes (1928), Serena Blandish (1929), The Rhapsody (1930) by Louis K. Anspacher, The Wiser they Are (1931), and Hay Fever (1931–32) by Noel Coward, with Constance Collier.
Her fashion business, "Julia Hoyt Modes", designed dresses and coats sold in department stores across the United States. She wrote syndicated articles about etiquette and fashion. In 1924, she wrote a series of reports from a European trip for the Bridgeport Post.
Personal life
Julia Hoyt was considered a great beauty, and sat for portraits by Paul Helleu, Neysa McMein (for the cover of McCall's in May 1923), John Singer Sargent and Carl Van Vechten.
Julia Robbins was married three times, first to lawyer Lydig Hoyt in 1914, as his second wife, when she was seventeen years old. They had two children who died in infancy, and divorced in 1924. She later wed actor Louis Calhern in 1927, the same year they co-starred in The Dark on Broadway; she divorced him in 1932. Finally in 1935 she wed motion picture executive Aquila C. Giles.
Hoyt had several health problems in the late 1930s, including pneumonia while at sea in 1935, and a lasting chest infection that necessitated the removal of ribs. Julia Hoyt Giles died in 1955, from a heart attack, aged 58 years.