- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWallace Fitzgerald Beery
- Nickname
- Wally
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on Broadway and in traveling stock companies. In 1913 he headed for Hollywood, where he would get his start as the hulking Swedish maid in the Sweedie comedy series for Essanay. In 1915 he would work with young ingénue Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). A year later they would marry and be wildly unhappy together. The marriage dissolved when Beery could not control his drinking and Gloria got tired of his abuse. Beery finished with the Sweedie series and worked as the heavy in a number of films. Starting with Patria (1917), he would play the beastly Hun in a number of films. In the 1920s he would be seen in a number of adventures, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Pony Express (1925). He would also play the part of Poole in So Big (1924), which was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Edna Ferber. Paramount began to move Beery back into comedies with Behind the Front (1926). When sound came, Beery was one of the victims of the wholesale studio purge. He had a voice that would record well, but his speech was slow and his tone was a deep, folksy, down home-type. While not the handsome hero image, MGM executive Irving Thalberg saw something in Beery and hired him for the studio. Thalberg cast Beery in The Big House (1930), which was a big hit and got Beery an Academy Award nomination. However, Beery would become almost a household word with the release of the sentimental Min and Bill (1930), which would be one of 1930's top money makers. The next year Beery would win the Oscar for Best Actor in The Champ (1931). He would be forever remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) (who says never work with kids?). Beery became one of the top ten stars in Hollywood, as he was cast as the tough, dim-witted, easy-going type (which, in real life, he was anything but). In Flesh (1932) he would be the dim-witted wrestler who did not figure that his wife was unfaithful. In Dinner at Eight (1933) he played a businessman trying to get into society while having trouble with his wife, link=nm0001318]. After Marie Dressler died in 1934, he would not find another partner in the same vein as his early talkies until he teamed with Marjorie Main in the 1940s. He would appear opposite her in such films as Wyoming (1940) and Barnacle Bill (1941). By that time his career was slowing as he was getting up in age. He continued to work, appearing in only one or two pictures a year, until he died from a heart attack in 1949.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana <[email protected]>
- SpousesRita Gilman(August 4, 1924 - May 1, 1939) (divorced, 1 child)Gloria Swanson(March 27, 1916 - December 12, 1918) (divorced)
- Children
- ParentsNoah Webster BeeryFrancis Margaret Fitzgerald
- RelativesNoah Beery Jr.(Niece or Nephew)Bucklind Beery(Niece or Nephew)Muffett Beery(Niece or Nephew)Melissa Beery(Niece or Nephew)Noah Beery(Sibling)
- He was notoriously abusive towards the juvenile performers he supposedly adored onscreen. For one scene in Slave Ship (1937), he had to slap his 16 year-old co-star Mickey Rooney across the face. Beery didn't fake the action and, without warning, slapped Rooney so hard he was knocked to the floor, spoiling the take and causing outrage among the crew. Director Tay Garnett took Beery aside and told him that everyone on the set loved Rooney, and that it would be most unfortunate if some lighting equipment were to "accidentally" fall on Beery's head. Beery got the message and behaved himself for the rest of the shoot. Interestingly, Rooney was one of the very few actors to work with Beery who later expressed no resentment towards him. He said, "Not everyone loved him the way I did". When Dickie Moore interviewed former child stars for his 1984 book "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" Wallace Beery and W.C. Fields were the two actors the child stars disliked working with the most. Jackie Cooper said about Beery "We did four long films together" and "They couldn't find eight guys to carry his casket.".
- At MGM his public image was carefully crafted by studio publicity chief Howard Strickling as that of a big lovable slob with a heart of gold. In reality, however, Beery was anything but that. Co-star Jackie Cooper said that Beery treated him like an unwanted dog the second the cameras stopped.
- When the Academy Awards were first presented, the winners were announced ahead of the ceremony, partly with the hope the recipients would show up to collect their award. When it was announced that the winner of the 1931 prize for best actor went to Fredric March, Beery reportedly stormed into the office of MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, demanding he be given the award instead. The result was a "tie" for Best Actor that year. From then on the Oscar votes were tabulated by Price Waterhouse, and the winners announced at the ceremony.
- He took up flying in 1925, and from then until 1941 he accumulated 14,000 hours of flight time as a pilot. While making Treasure Island (1934) on Santa Catalina Island, he commuted daily by plane from his Beverly Hills home.
- In December of 1939, right after divorcing his second wife, Beery adopted a seven-month-old girl, Phyllis Anne, as a single father. She appears in the 1940 United States census listed as a foster daughter in the Beery household under the name Phyllis Riley. Nevada is named as her birthplace.
- That Night (1917) - $50 /week
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