Wallace Beery
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Wallace Beery | |||||||||||
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a publicity shot of Wallace Beery |
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Born | Wallace Fitzgerald Beery April 1, 1885 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
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Died | April 15, 1949 (aged 64) Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
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Occupation | Stage, film actor | ||||||||||
Years active | 1913-1949 | ||||||||||
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Wallace Beery (April 1, 1885 – April 15, 1949) was an American Academy Award-winning actor, best known for his portrayal of Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) as well as more than 200 other movie roles over a 36-year span.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and career
Born in Kansas City, Missouri to Noah W. Beery and Marguerite Fitzgerald Beery, he was the younger brother of actor William Beery and Noah Beery, who also would have a lengthy career in motion pictures, as well as the uncle of actor Noah Beery, Jr.. According to U.S. Census records, all three Beery brothers were born to the same parents, making them full brothers and not half-brothers as many reports have it. Wallace Fitzgerald Beery joined the Ringling Brothers circus at the age of sixteen as an assistant elephant trainer. He left two years later after being clawed by a leopard. He found work in New York City in musical variety and began to appear on Broadway. In 1913, he moved to Chicago to work for Essanay Studios, cast as "Sweedie, The Swedish Maid," a manly character in drag. Later he would move to California, to the Essanay Studios location in Niles, CA.
In 1915, Beery starred with his wife Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College. The marriage did not survive his drinking and abuse. In the following years, he began to play villains in several movies, and in 1917 portrayed Pancho Villa in Patria during the period when Villa was still active in Mexico; Beery would reprise the role seventeen years later.
His notable silent films include Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaur epic The Lost World (1925; as Professor Challenger), Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks (1922; Beery played King Richard the Lionheart in this film and a sequel the following year called Richard the Lion-Hearted), Last of the Mohicans (1920), The Round-Up (1920; with Roscoe Arbuckle), Old Ironsides (1926), Now We're in the Air (1927), The Usual Way (1913), and Beggars of Life (1928; with Louise Brooks).
[edit] Transition to sound
With the transition to sound film he was for a time put out of work, but Irving Thalberg had no objection to Beery's gruff slow speech as a character actor, and hired him under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Beery appeared in the highly-successful 1930 prison film The Big House (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). The same year, he made the pivotal Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, the movie that vaulted him into the box office first rank. He followed that up with The Champ in 1931, this time winning the Best Actor Oscar, and the role of Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934). He received a gold medal from the Venice Film Festival for his second performance as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934) with Fay Wray (Lee Tracy was originally to appear in the film until he drunkenly urinated off the balcony into a crowd of Mexicans standing below; Tracy's career never recovered from the incident). Other notable Beery films include Billy the Kid (1930) with John Mack Brown, The Secret Six (1931) with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, Hell Divers (1931) with Gable, Grand Hotel (1932) with Joan Crawford, Tugboat Annie (1933) with Dressler, Dinner at Eight (1933) opposite Jean Harlow, The Bowery with George Raft and Pert Kelton that same year, China Seas (1935) with Gable and Harlow, and Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (1935) in the role of a drunken uncle later played on Broadway by Jackie Gleason in a musical comedy version. During the 1930s Beery was regularly one of Hollywood's Top 10 box office stars, and at one point his contract with MGM stipulated that he be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio, making him the highest paid actor in the world.
He made several comedies with Marie Dressler (Min and Bill and Tugboat Annie, both sensationally successful) and Marjorie Main, but his career began to slow down in his last decade. In 1943 his brother Noah Beery co-starred with Wallace Beery in the war-time propaganda film Salute to the Marines, followed by Bad Bascomb (1946) and The Mighty McGurk (1947).
[edit] Personal life
His second wife was Rita Gorman. Together they adopted a daughter Carol Ann, daughter of Rita Gorman Beery's cousin. The marriage ended in divorce.
According to E.J. Fleming's book "The Fixers" (about MGM's legendary "fixers" Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling) Beery, gangster Pat DiCicco, and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli (who was also DiCicco's cousin and eventual producer of the James Bond films) allegedly beat comedian Ted Healy to death in a brawl. The book went on to claim that Beery was then sent to Europe by the studio for a few months until the heat was off, while a story was concocted for the public that three college students had killed Healy instead. (Immigration records confirm a four-month trip to Europe on Beery's part immediately after Healy's death, ending April 17, 1938.)[1] Oddly, a superb pencil drawing of Beery survives that was drawn on a film set by Healy, an amateur artist as well as the organizer and original leader of the Three Stooges (the act was originally known as "Ted Healy and His Stooges").
At best, Beery seems to have been somewhat misanthropic and difficult to work with, and Jackie Cooper, who worked with Beery in several films, called him in his autobiography "the most sadistic person I have ever known". Child actress Margaret O'Brien also worked with Beery, and ultimately had to be protected by crew members from Beery's insistence on constantly pinching her.
One of his proudest achievements was catching the largest black sea bass in the world off Santa Catalina Island in 1916. It was to be a record that stood for 35 years.
He died at his Beverly Hills, California home of a heart attack at the age of 64, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California.
For his contribution to the film industry, Wallace Beery has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7001 Hollywood Blvd.
[edit] Selected filmography
Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
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1913 | His Athletic Wife | ||
1914 | The Ups and Downs | ||
Cheering a Husband | |||
In and Out | |||
Madame Double X | |||
1915 | Two Hearts That Beat as Ten | ||
Ain't It the Truth | |||
The Broken Pledge | |||
The Fable of the Roistering Blades | |||
1916 | A Dash of Courage | Police Chief | |
1917 | Patria | Pancho Villa | |
Maggie's First False Step | |||
Are Waitresses Safe? | |||
1920 | The Virgin of Stamboul | ||
The Mollycoddle | Henry von Holkar | ||
The Round-Up | Buck McKee | ||
813 | Major Parbury/Ribeira | ||
The Last of the Mohicans | Magua | ||
1921 | The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse | Lieutenant Colonel von Richthoffen | |
1922 | I Am the Law | Fu Chang | |
Robin Hood | King Richard the Lion-Hearted | ||
1923 | The Flame of Life | Don Lowrie | |
Stormswept | William McCabe | ||
Drifting | Jules Repin | ||
Three Ages | The Villain | ||
Richard the Lion-Hearted | King Richard the Lion-Hearted | Sequel to 1922's Robin Hood | |
The Drums of Jeopardy | Gregor Karlov | ||
White Tiger | Count Donelli/Hawkes | ||
1924 | The Red Lily | ||
1925 | The Lost World | Professor Challenger | |
1926 | Old Ironsides | Bos'n | Alternative title: Sons of the Sea |
1927 | Casey at the Bat | Casey | |
Now We're in the Air | Wally | Considered lost | |
1928 | Beggars of Life | Oklahoma Red | |
1929 | Chinatown Nights | Chuck Riley | Alternative title: Tong War |
1930 | The Big House | Butch "Machine Gun" Schmidt | Nominated for Best Actor Academy Award |
Billy the Kid | Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett | ||
Way for a Sailor | Tripod McMasters | ||
A Lady's Morals | P.T. Barnum | ||
Min and Bill | Bill, a Fisherman | ||
1931 | The Stolen Jools | Police Sergeant | Short film; Alternative title: The Slippery Pearls |
The Secret Six | Louis "Louie" Scorpio | ||
The Champ | Champ | Won the Academy Award for Best Actor | |
Hell Divers | CPO H.W. "Windy" Riker | ||
1932 | Grand Hotel | Preysing | |
Flesh | Polakai | ||
Tugboat Annie | Terry Brennan | ||
1933 | Dinner at Eight | Dan Packard | |
The Bowery | Chuck Connors | ||
1934 | Viva Villa! | Pancho Villa | |
Treasure Island | Long John Silver | ||
The Mighty Barnum | P.T. Barnum | ||
1935 | West Point of the Air | Sargent "Big Mike" Stone | |
China Seas | Jamesy MacArdle | ||
O'Shaughnessy's Boy | Captain Michael "Windy" O'Shaughnessy | ||
Ah, Wilderness! | Sidney "Sid" Miller | ||
1936 | A Message to Garcia | Sargent Dory | |
Old Hutch | Hutch Hutchins | ||
1937 | The Good Old Soak | Clem Hawley | |
Slave Ship | Jack Thompson | ||
The Bad Man of Brimstone | Trigger Bill | ||
1938 | Port of Seven Seas | Cesar | |
Stablemates | Doc Thomas "Tom" Terry | ||
1939 | Stand Up and Fight | Captain Boss Starkey | |
Sergeant Madden | Sargent Shaun Madden | ||
Thunder Afloat | John "Pop" Thorson | ||
1940 | The Man From Dakota | Sargent "Bar" Barstow | Alternative title: Arouse and Beware |
20 Mule Team | Skinner Bill Bragg (Alias of Ambrose Murphy) | ||
Wyoming | Reb Harkness | Alternative title: Bad Man of Wyoming | |
1941 | The Bad Man | Pancho Lopez | Alternative title: Two-Gun Cupid |
Barnacle Bill | Bill Johansen | ||
1942 | The Bugle Sounds | Pancho Lopez | |
Jackass Mail | Marmaduke "Just" Baggot | ||
1943 | Salute to the Marines | Sergeant Major William Bailey | |
1944 | Rationing | Ben Barton | |
Barbary Coast Gent | Honest Plush Brannon | Alternative titles: Gold Town and The Honest Thief | |
1945 | This Man's Navy | Ned Trumpet | |
1946 | Bad Bascomb | Zed Bascomb | |
1947 | The Mighty McGurk | Roy "Slag" McGurk | |
1948 | Alias a Gentleman | Jim Breedin | |
A Date With Judy | Melvin R. Foster | ||
1949 | Big Jack | Big Jack Horner |
[edit] Awards and nominations
Year | Group | Award | Film | Result |
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1930 | Academy Award | Best Actor in a Leading Role | The Big House | Nominated |
1932 | Academy Award | Best Actor in a Leading Role | The Champ | Won (Tied with Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) |
1934 | Venice Film Festival | Best Actor | Viva Villa! | Won |
[edit] References
- ^ Ile de France passenger list, p. 117, line 9, Microfilm roll T715_6140
[edit] External links
- Wallace Beery at the Internet Movie Database
- Wallace Beery at Allmovie
- Wallace Beery at Find A Grave
- Photographs of Wallace Beery
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Persondata | |
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NAME | Beery, Wallace |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Beery, Wallace Fitzgerald |
SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actor |
DATE OF BIRTH | April 1, 1885 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
DATE OF DEATH | April 15, 1949 |
PLACE OF DEATH | Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |