The man who has had a life-long love affair with movies and spread that joy every Saturday night on TVOntario is still a film fan.
Elwy Yost, host of TVOntario’s Saturday Night at the Movies for more than 20 years, watches films these days from his home in West Vancouver, where he has lived since 1988.
Although, he is no longer seen on the TV show, it still bears his stamp as many of the interviews broadcast are from his time on the program. Yost didn’t interview everyone who had a role in Hollywood over the past 60 years or so; it just seems that way.
During his TVO days, Yost explored themes in movies and journeyed to Hollywood to talk to the actors, writers, directors, cinematographers and make-up artists who created memorable movie magic. His show distinguished itself by often focusing on behind-the-scenes people of Hollywood, which may explain why TVO provided hundreds of interview segments to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its archives.
Through it all, the affable Yost (or perhaps it’s better to refer to him as Elwy as most of his fans seemed to do) never lost the feeling of being an eight-year-old boy in his neighbourhood theatre.  "Oh sure I do," he once said in an interview when asked if he got excited to meet actors like Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, writers, and directors responsible for some of his favourite flicks.  "I’m still a child.  I’ve never grown up.  The question ‘what is Hollywood?’ is hard to answer.  It still haunts me."
When Yost began Saturday Night at the Movies, he’d already had several years of television experience, notably as a panelist on the game show Flashback and as host of Passport to Adventure, which was something of a precursor to what Saturday Night and his through-the-week-program Magic Shadows would become.
TVO wanted an educational element to its program, and Yost had experience as a teacher. He joked that he was hired as host because his ability to do three jobs as host/writer/producer would save TVO money.   
The first series of shows in March 1974 was Three Films in Search of God, in which Yost screened Ingmar Bergman films and invited academics and religious leaders on for discussion.
Before he retired from the show, Yost spent time writing a novel. White Shadows: A Novel of Espionage and Adventure, was published in 2004 and involves romance, adventure and a lost film that offers a key to one of the best-kept secrets of the 20th century. "It’s quite sexy in places," he says.
These days, now in his early 80s, Yost takes it easy. He had a serious operation a couple of years ago, but came through it successfully. Movies are still a big part of his entertainment; he watches with wife Lila.  
"I’m enjoying life; I suppose that’s a good way to put it."
Mark Kearney and Randy Ray are the authors of Whatever Happened To…? Catching Up With Canadian Icons, from which this story was adapted. The authors’ books are available at most bookstores and at triviaguys.com.