David Yost

David Yost
David Yost in 2014
Born	David Harold Yost (1969-01-07) January 7, 1969 (age 48) Council Bluffs, Iowa, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actor and producer

David Harold Yost (born January 7, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for portraying Billy Cranston in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, and Power Rangers Zeo.

Yost was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He moved around the United States while winning many national gymnastics competitions, most notably the state championships in Iowa and Montana. In 1987, he graduated from Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, California. In 1991, he graduated from Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in communication and dramatic arts.

Yost moved to California with hopes of becoming an actor, and won the part of Billy Cranston (Blue Power Ranger) in the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers three months after arriving. He starred in more than 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 in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), which took in over $30 million at the box office. The film served as a non-canonical alternate opening for the third season.

After the show ended and Power 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 a technical 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 that Haim Saban was interested in the cast turnover of Super Sentai and believes that this was part of it. Yost left the show toward the end of the Power 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. A tribute to his character was seen in the closing credits of this episode.