Harold J. Stone (born Harold Hochstein, March 3, 1913 – November 18, 2005) was an American stage, radio, film, and television character actor. born
to a Jewish acting family, Stone debuted on stage at the age of six with his father, Jacob Hochstein, in the play White Slaves. A graduate of New York University, he attended the University of Buffalo to study medicine, but he soon altered those career plans and decided, instead, to become an actor to support his mother. He appeared in three episodes of Hogan's Heroes.
After gaining considerable acting experience in various plays during the 1930s, Stone was finally cast on Broadway, where between 1939 and the early 1950s, he appeared in a series of critically acclaimed productions such as One Touch of Venus and Stalag 17. Some of his other Broadway credits include Morning Star (1939), A Bell for Adano (1944), S.S. Glencairn (1947), Abraham Cochrane (1963), Charley's Aunt (1970), and Ring Around the Bathtub (1971). Later in his career, after working extensively in films and television, Stone periodically returned to the stage, where in the 1960s and 1970s, he also directed several off-Broadway and Broadway productions, including Ernest in Love and Charley's Aunt.
Stone was married twice. His first wife, Jean, died in 1960. He married again in 1962, but two years later separated from his second wife. He had two sons and one daughter. Stone died on November 18, 2005, at age 92, from natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Retirement Home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.