Duncan Hoxworth ’57

“A wild guy, really fun,” Jack Schlegel — friend, Princeton classmate, and fellow actor — said of Duncan Hoxworth, who died Nov. 22, 2019, of a heart attack.

The son of a Cincinnati physician, Duncan graduated from Cincinnati Country Day, where he was president of his class, editor of the school newspaper, and a member of the tennis and football teams. At Princeton, Duncan was a member of WPRB and joined Tiger Inn. He acted in what Ted Jones ’57 called “semi-lead” roles in Theater Intime and Triangle shows. Variety magazine picked up on the joy of the jungle scene in “Tunis” our sophomore year in which Duncan, attempting to be, Jones said, a “little, skinny guy,” played Tarzan; Joe Knox ’56, a “hulk of a man,” played Jane; and Ted played Boy.

“He was basically a stand-up comedian,” Ted said, “very popular” at both prep school and Princeton. “He was an original — you didn’t know what was coming,” Jack added. Duncan had one film role, in Goodbye Columbus, Ted said. He acted in TV commercials until the 1970s, when his age became a detriment. Afterward he was a carpenter, first helping build stage sets, then New York City apartments. His wife, Barbara, was a set designer with Law & Order. He and Barbara lived in Greenwich Village and in a cabin in the woods of Pawling, N.Y., near western Connecticut.