Hobart Van Zandt Bosworth (August 11, 1867 – December 30, 1943) was an American film actor, director, writer, and producer.

Despite a battle with tuberculosis, he found success in silent films, establishing himself as a lead actor and pioneering the industry in California.

In June 1885, while he was on shore leave in San Francisco, an opportunity arose for him to join McKee Rankin's stage company.

During his time with the company, Hobart and another writer wrote a version of Faust that Morrison used for twenty years in repertory.

He became proficient enough on stage to give Shakespearean canon by the time he was twenty-one years old, though he admitted that he was the worst Macbeth ever.

[citation needed] Bosworth eventually wound up in Park City, Utah, where he worked in a mine, pushing an ore wagon in order to raise money.

Just as Bosworth began to taste stage stardom in New York, he was stricken with tuberculosis, a disease often fatal in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Bosworth was attracted to Jack London's work due to his out-of-doors filming experience and the requirements of his health, which precluded acting in studios.

He produced, directed, wrote, and acted in Martin Eden and An Odyssey of the North, playing the lead in the latter, which was released by Paramount.

On 22 December 1920 he married Cecile Kibre, widow of G. Harold Percival, who had been art director at Ince Studio and who had died of influenza in 1918.

Although he appeared in small roles in A-list films, Bosworth primarily made his living as a prominently billed character actor in B-Westerns and serials churned out by Poverty Row studios.

As the Hollywood production began, an old airfield in nearby Arcadia, California was converted into a set, complete with "artificial snow, fake ice mounds and painted backdrop attached to the back side of the dilapidated Army barracks."

With principal photography slated for September, dry ice in metal containers stuffed in actor's mouths sufficed for the usual Arctic breath.

Capra asked actors to use dry ice encased in small cages in the mouth, to simulate foggy breath in the scene.

Soon, Bosworth was rushed to hospital with ice burns in his mouth, resulting in removal of some teeth, jaw bone, and tissue.

[citation needed] For his contributions to the film industry, Bosworth received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.