Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "David Yost" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

David Yost
Yost atGalaxyCon Richmond in 2022
Born	David Harold Yost (1969-01-07)January 7, 1969 (age 57) Council Bluffs, Iowa, U.S.
Education	Amador Valley High School
Alma mater	Graceland University(BA)
Occupations	Actor producer
Years active	1993–present

David Harold Yost (/joʊst/; born January 7, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for portrayingBilly Cranston inMighty Morphin Power Rangers,Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie,Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers,Power Rangers Zeo,Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always andPower Rangers Cosmic Fury.

Yost was born inCouncil Bluffs, Iowa.^[1] He moved around the United States while winning many national gymnastics competitions, most notably the state championships inIowa andMontana. In 1987, he graduated fromAmador Valley High School inPleasanton, California. In 1991, he graduated fromGraceland University inLamoni, Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in communication and dramatic arts.^[1]

Yost moved to California with hopes of becoming an actor,^[1] and won the part ofBilly Cranston (Blue Power Ranger) in the television seriesMighty Morphin Power Rangers three months after arriving. He starred in almost 200 episodes of the show's first four seasons. He was the only cast member to appear in every single episode of the original series; his character never changed his colors or passed on his power coins to successors like the rest of the original cast. Yost's most high-profile work was his appearance inMighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995),^[2] which took in over $60 million at the box office. The film served as a non-canonical alternate opening for the third season.

After the show ended andPower Rangers Zeo began in the fourth season, Yost stayed on as Billy, but Billy's role within the show changed. Instead of his previous role as a Power Ranger, he became atechnical advisor to the others. When asked about the change in a 2010 interview, Yost was evasive about how he'd personally felt about this but said he understood why the production team did it; he stated thatHaim Saban was interested in the cast turnover ofSuper Sentai and believes that this was part of it.^[3] Yost left the show toward the end of thePower Rangers Zeo season. His character's final episode employed footage from previous episodes and voice work from an uncredited actor to conceal the fact that Yost was not present during the taping.^{[citation needed]} A tribute to his character was seen in theclosing credits of this episode.

While it was originally believed that he had left the series due to insufficient pay, Yost later revealed in a 2010 interview that he left because he could no longer handle harassment by members of the production crew who targeted him over his sexual orientation. According to Yost, he was often called a "faggot", and the producers frequently questioned other cast members in private about his sexuality. Yost left late in the fourth season after a week of contemplation and thoughts of suicide instead of continuing work another six months into thesecond film. He stated that the co-workers involved with writing, filming, and producing the show considered him "not worthy" to be where he was and that he "could not be a superhero" because of his homosexuality.^[4][5]

Scott Page-Pagter, a producer of the show starting withPower Rangers Zeo,^[6] responded throughTMZ that Yost actually left over a pay bonus being dropped but did not elaborate further or dispute any of Yost's claims about the outside reasons for leaving the show. Saban Entertainment made no official statement regarding the subject.^[7] After Yost left the show, he attempted to change his sexual orientation withconversion therapy for two years. Eventually, he had anervous breakdown that resulted in his psychiatric hospitalization for five weeks. After he checked out, he moved to Mexico for a year and eventually accepted his sexuality.^[5]

Yost starred as Josh White in the filmScene of the Crime (1996). He portrayed aPlayboy photographer in the television filmAfter Diff'rent Strokes: When the Laughter Stopped (2000). He was anassociate producer for another television film,The Mary Kay Letourneau Story (2000). He first tried producing in 2001, working on the seriesAlien Hunter andTemptation Island. He worked as the director of production forSci-Fi Lab, headed by theSci-Fi Channel. He then became the manager of licensing forGeneon, where he sold television shows and films to such networks asShowtime,Starz,Encore, andCartoon Network.

In 2002, Yost performed in a play calledFallen Guardian Angels in Los Angeles for AIDS Project Los Angeles. The play was about six actors dealing with HIV in various situations. The proceeds went to benefit The Children's Hospitals AIDS Center. The entire production raised over $25,000 and Yost himself raised $5,000 for the hospital, as well as receiving good reviews fromLA Weekly Theater. In 2004, he worked as a field producer for the English documentary seriesYou Are What You Eat. He appeared at the Anime Festival Orlando in Florida in August 2010.^[8] He has participated in theNOH8 Campaign.^[9] He appeared at Power Morphicon 2012 and 2014 inPasadena, California along with his former co-stars.^[10] Yost appeared alongside his friend and former Power Rangers co-star,Amy Jo Johnson in one of Johnson'sStageit webcast shows in 2014.^[11] As of 2015, Yost remains on the convention circuit.

In 2016, Yost became co-owner of Affirmative Clothing along withHarlingen, Texas entrepreneurs Mason and Cris Andrade. Named after one of Billy's catch phrases, Affirmative has apparel with designs mostly inspired byPower Rangers, which Yost and the Andrade brothers first sold on conventions they attended.^[12]

In 2017, he starred in the short filmThe Order alongside other formerPower Rangers co-stars.^{[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]}

In May 2018, shortly after Hasbro acquired thePower Rangers franchise, Yost (via Twitter) expressed his desire to help produce aMighty Morphin Power Rangers reunion film forNetflix.^[20] In September 2022, it was announced that Yost was returning to thePower Rangers franchise for a 30th-anniversary special, accompanied by original Black Ranger actorWalter Emanuel Jones as well as former co-starsSteve Cardenas,Johnny Yong Bosch,Karan Ashley, andCatherine Sutherland. The special titledMighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always was released on April 19, 2023.^[21][22]

• David Yost atIMDb
• David Yost on Twitter
• Affirmative Clothing

• 1969 births
• 20th-century American LGBTQ people
• 20th-century American male actors
• 21st-century American LGBTQ people
• American gay actors
• American male film actors
• American male television actors
• Graceland University alumni
• LGBTQ film producers
• LGBTQ people from Iowa
• LGBTQ television producers
• Living people
• Male actors from Iowa
• People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
• People from Pleasanton, California
• Male actors from Alameda County, California
• Actors from Billings, Montana
• Male actors from Billings, Montana
• LGBTQ rights activists from California

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from October 2022
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• BLP articles lacking sources from April 2018
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Use American English from July 2020
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Articles with hCards
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2018