The Biography

David Hoyt Canary (August 25, 1938 – November 16, 2015) was an American actor. Canary is best known for his roles as ranch foreman "Candy" Canaday in the Bonanza beginning in its ninth season, and as Adam Chandler in the television soap opera All My Children, for which he received 16 Daytime Emmy Award nominations and won five times. In his youth, Canary was a star football player and was drafted as a lineman in the inaugural 1960 AFL draft by the Denver Broncos. Instead, he opted to pursue acting. Early roles included Russ Gehring in the primetime soap opera Peyton Place and Lamar Dean in the 1967 Western film Hombre. Canary's most notable stage performance was on Broadway in the original production of Tennessee Williams's Clothes for a Summer Hotel, starring Geraldine Page. A baritone, he also appeared in musical stage roles in shows such as Kismet, Man Of La Mancha, The Fantasticks, Sweeney Todd and Carousel, along with dramatic performances in The Seagull, Macbeth, and Clarence Darrow.