13 Facts About Elwy Yost

Elwy Yost graduated from the Weston Collegiate and Vocational School in 1943.

Elwy Yost 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.

Elwy Yost 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.

Elwy Yost then worked as an English and History teacher at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke, Ontario.

Elwy Yost joined the Ontario Educational Communications Authority 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.

Elwy 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.

Elwy Yost developed Magic Shadows, which showed classic films in a serial format in half-hour early evening installments with introductions providing background and interesting details by Elwy Yost; the movie review show Rough Cuts; Talking Film and The Moviemakers.

When Elwy Yost retired from TVOntario in 1999, a copy of the library of interviews was donated to the Motion Picture Academy.

Elwy Yost's son, Graham Yost, is a screenwriter whose most famous credit was the hit 1994 film Speed.

Speed was the final movie Elwy Yost hosted before retiring from Saturday Night at the Movies in 1999.

Elwy Yost wrote four books: Magic Moments from the Movies, Secret of the Lost Empire, Billy and the Bubbleship and White Shadows the latter being a mystery novel, published in 2003.

Elwy Yost recovered from "a serious operation" he had in 2005, according to his wife, Lila.

Elwy Yost died in West Vancouver, British Columbia on July 21,2011, aged 86.