Steve Ihnat

Stefan Ihnat (August 7, 1934 – May 12, 1972) was a Slovak-born American actor and director, raised in Lynden, Ontario, Canada, who later moved to the US. Ihnat was born to Andrew and Mary Ihnat in Slovakia and was raised on a farm in Lynden, Ontario. His family settled there after fleeing his native Czechoslovakia in 1939, when he was five years old. Ihnat, his mother, father, younger sister, and two young boys from other families left Czechoslovakia three days before Prague was occupied by invading German forces in March of that year. Ihnat moved to the United States in 1956 to pursue a career in acting and attended the Pasadena Playhouse. He never gained United States citizenship. In 1959, he played a truck driver in with cargo hijackers in an episode of Highway Patrol. At a time when he had difficulty finding work he enlisted in the United States Army for two years serving at Headquarters U.S. Army, Port Inchon, South Korea. In 1960, Pvt. Ihnat won second prize in the Republic of Korea poetry contest for his entry titled "Toil in the Night."