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Wallace Beery

1885 – 1949

American actor

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About Wallace Beery

Lived 1885 – 1949 (aged 64). Wallace Beery was an American stage actor, film actor, actor, film director and director.

Wallace Fitzgerald Beery (April 1, 1885 – April 15, 1949) was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as the pirate Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934) for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.

For his contributions to the film industry, Beery was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

Early life

Beery was born the youngest of three boys on April 1, 1885, in Clay County, Missouri, near Smithville. The Beery family left the farm in the 1890s and moved to nearby Kansas City, Missouri, where his father was a police officer. A fourth brother, Charles, was born in 1880 but survived only a day after his birth. There might have been an older sister but information is faint.

Beery attended the Chase School in Kansas City and took piano lessons as well, but showed little love for academic matters. He ran away from home twice, the first time returning after a short time, quitting school and working in the Kansas City train yards as an engine wiper.

Comedy film star – Essanay Studios In 1913, he moved to Chicago to work for Essanay Studios. His first movie was likely a comedy short, His Athletic Wife (1913).

Beery was then cast as Sweedie, a Swedish maid character he played in drag in a series of short comedy films from 1914 to 1916. Sweedie Learns to Swim (1914) co-starred Ben Turpin. Sweedie Goes to College (1915) starred Gloria Swanson, whom Beery married the following year.

Beery was in The Drums of Jeopardy (1923) and had a supporting role in The Sea Hawk (1924) for director Frank Lloyd. He also appeared in a supporting role for Clarence Brown's The Signal Tower (1925) starring Virginia Valli and Rockliffe Fellowes.

Paramount

Beery signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. He had a support role in Adventure (1925) directed by Victor Fleming.

At First National, he was given the star role of Professor Challenger in Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaur epic The Lost World (1925), arguably his silent performance most frequently screened in the modern era. Beery was top billed in Paramount's The Devil's Cargo (1925) for Victor Fleming, and supported in The Night Club (1925), The Pony Express (1925) for James Cruze, and The Wanderer (1925) for Raoul Walsh.

Beery starred in a comedy with Raymond Hatton, Behind the Front (1926), and he was a villain in Volcano! (1926). He was a bos'n in Old Ironsides (1926) for director James Cruze, with Charles Farrell in the romantic lead.

Beery had the title role in the baseball movie Casey at the Bat (1927). He was reunited with Hatton in Fireman, Save My Child (1927) and Now We're in the Air (1927). The latter also featured Louise Brooks, who was Beery's costar in Beggars of Life (1928), directed by William Wellman, which was Paramount's first part-talkie movie.

He made a fourth comedy with Hatton, Wife Savers (1929), then Beery starred in Chinatown Nights (1929) for Wellman, produced by a young David O. Selznick. This film was shot silent with the voices dubbed in by the actors afterward, which worked spectacularly well with Beery's resonant voice, although the technique was not used again during the silent era for another full-length feature. Beery then played in Stairs of Sand (1929), a Western also starring Jean Arthur, before being fired by Paramount.

MGM

Dressler again co-starred opposite Beery in the highly popular Tugboat Annie (1933).

Irving Thalberg signed Beery to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) as a character actor. The association began well when Beery played the savage convict Butch, a role originally intended for Lon Chaney (who died that same year), in the highly successful 1930 prison film The Big House, directed by George W. Hill; Beery was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Beery's second film for MGM was also a huge success: Billy the Kid (1930), an early widescreen picture in which he played Pat Garrett. He supported John Gilbert in Way for a Sailor (1930) and Grace Moore in A Lady's Morals (1930), portraying P. T. Barnum in the latter.

Stardom Beery was well known as a leading man and character actor. The picture that established him as one of cinema's foremost stars was Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler and directed by George W. Hill, a sensational success.

Beery made a third film with Hill, The Secret Six (1931), a gangster movie with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable in key supporting roles. The picture was popular, but was surpassed at the box office by The Champ, which Beery made with Jackie Cooper for director King Vidor. The film, especially written for Beery, was another box-office sensation. Beery shared the Best Actor Oscar with Fredric March. Though March received one vote more than Beery, Academy rules at the time—since rescinded—defined results within one vote of each other as "ties." (An alternate account has MGM head Louis B. Mayer storming backstage at the Oscars and demanding that March and Beery share that year's Academy Award for Best Actor since the vote was so close.)

Beery's career went from strength to strength. Hell Divers (1932), a naval airplane epic also starring a young Clark Gable billed under Beery, was a big hit. So, too, was the all-star Grand Hotel (1932), in which Beery was billed fourth, under Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, and Joan Crawford, one of the very few times he would not be top billed for the rest of his career. In 1932, his contract with MGM stipulated that he be paid a dollar more than any other contract player at the studio, making him the world's highest-paid actor.

Beery was a German wrestler in Flesh (1932), a hit directed by John Ford, but Ford removed his directorial credit before the film opened, so the picture screened with no director listed despite being labeled "A John Ford Production" in the opening title card. Next Beery was in another all-star ensemble blockbuster, Dinner at Eight (1933), with Jean Harlow holding her own as Beery's comically bickering wife. This time, Beery was billed third, under Marie Dressler and John Barrymore.

Beery was lent to the new 20th Century Pictures for the boisterously fast-paced comedy/drama The Bowery (1933), also starring George Raft, Jackie Cooper, and Fay Wray, and featuring Pert Kelton, under the direction of Raoul Walsh. The picture was a smash hit.

Back at MGM, he played the title role of Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1933) and was reunited with Dressler in Tugboat Annie (1933), a massive hit. He was Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), MGM's third-largest hit of the season, and remains currently viewed as featuring one of Beery's iconic performances.

Beery returned to 20th Century Productions for The Mighty Barnum (1934), in which he played P. T. Barnum again. Back at MGM, he was a kindly sergeant in West Point of the Air (1935) and was in an all-star spectacular, China Seas (1935), this time billed beneath Clark Gable.

O'Shaughnessy's Boy (1935) reunited Beery and Jackie Cooper. He had the lead as the drunken uncle in MGM's adaptation of Ah, Wilderness! (1936) and went back to 20th Century – now 20th Century Fox – for A Message to Garcia (1936) with Barbara Stanwyck.

At MGM, he was in Old Hutch (1936) and The Good Old Soak (1937), then he was back at Fox for Slave Ship (1937), taking second billing under Warner Baxter, a rarity for Beery after Min and Bill catapulted his career into the stratosphere in 1931, during which he received top billing in all but six films (Min and Bill, Grand Hotel, Tugboat Annie, Dinner at Eight, China Seas with Gable and Harlow, and Slave Ship).

Decline

The status of Beery's films went into a decline. After an abrupt European vacation, Beery died of a heart attack three days after the picture's release.

Working relationship with peers

Many of Beery's colleagues considered him to be misanthropic and difficult to work with. Robert Young described Beery as a "shitty person". On set, he often never bothered to learn his lines and instead chose to take from other actors' characters and then resent it when his theft was pointed out. When prompting for another actor's close-up, Beery would read the wrong lines, making it harder for his co-stars to meet their marks. Beery was "loathed by everybody, and happily oblivious."

Mickey Rooney was one of Beery's few co-stars at MGM to consistently speak highly of him in subsequent decades. In his memoir, Rooney described Beery as "... a lovable, shambling kind of guy who never seemed to know that his shirttail belonged inside his pants, but always knew when a little kid actor needed a smile and a wink or a word of encouragement." He did concede that "not everyone loved [Beery] as much as I did." Rooney noted that Howard Strickling, MGM's head of publicity, once went to Louis B. Mayer to complain that Beery was stealing props from the studio's sets. "And that wasn't all", Rooney continued. "He went on for some minutes about the trouble that Beery was always causing him ... Mayer sighed and said, 'Yes, Howard, Beery's a son of a bitch. But he's our son of a bitch.' Strickling got the point. A family has to be tolerant of its black sheep, particularly if they brought a lot of money into the family fold, which Beery certainly did."

Several of MGM's child actors recalled unpleasant encounters with Beery. Jackie Cooper, who made several films with him early in his career, called him "a big disappointment." Cooper accused Beery of upstaging and other attempts to undermine his performances out of what Cooper presumed was jealousy. He recalled impulsively throwing his arms around Beery after one especially heartfelt scene, only to be gruffly pushed away. Margaret O'Brien who co-starred with Beery in Bad Bascomb (1946), stated that she got along with the actor but claimed that crew members had to protect her from Beery's insistence on constantly pinching her.

Personal life Marriages and children First marriage On March 27, 1916, at the age of 30, Beery married 17-year-old actress Gloria Swanson in Los Angeles. The two had co-starred in Sweedie Goes to College. Swanson filed for divorce in 1917 and it was finalized in 1918. The couple adopted Carol Ann Priester (1930–2013), daughter of Rita Beery's mother's half-sister, Juanita Priester (née Caplinger; 1899–1931) and her husband, Erwin William Priester (1897–1969). After years of marriage, Rita filed for divorce on May 1, 1939, in Carson City, Ormsby County, Nevada. Within 20 minutes of filing, she won the decree. Rita remarried 15 days later, on May 16, 1939, to Jessen Albert D. Foyt (1907–1945), filing her marriage license with the same county clerk in Carson City.

Second adoption Around December 1939, Beery, recently divorced, adopted a seven-month-old girl, Phyllis Ann Beery. Phyllis appeared in MGM publicity photos when adopted, but was never mentioned again. Beery told the press he had taken the girl in from a single mother, recently divorced, but he had filed no official adoption papers.

Paternity suit

On February 13, 1948, Gloria Schumm (or Gloria Smith Beery, née Florence W. Smith; 1916–1989) filed a paternity suit against Beery. Beery, through his lawyer, Norman Ronald Tyre (1910–2002), initially offered $6,000 as a settlement, but denied being the father of her child. Gloria had given birth on February 7, 1948, to Johan Richard Wallace Schumm, while married to Stuttgart-born Hollywood actor Hans Schumm (né Johann Josef Eugen Schumm; 1896–1990). In the early stages of pregnancy, Gloria had met with Beery at his home, where he gave her the name and address of a physician to submit to an examination. Broccoli admitted that he was indeed involved in a fistfight with Healy at the Trocadero. The official autopsy names Healy's cause of death as acute toxic nephritis secondary to acute and chronic alcoholism.

Hobbies Beery owned and flew his own planes, including a Howard DGA-11. On April 15, 1933, he was commissioned a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy Reserve at NRAB Long Beach. One of his proudest achievements was catching the largest giant black sea bass in the world — — off Santa Catalina Island in 1916, a record that stood for 35 years.

Politics and activism In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating Jackson Hole National Monument to protect the land adjoining the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Local ranchers, outraged at the loss of grazing lands, compared FDR's action to Hitler's taking of Austria. Led by an aging Beery, they protested by herding 500 cattle across the monument lands without a permit.

Beery supported Thomas Dewey in the 1944 United States presidential election.

Death

Beery died of a heart attack on April 15, 1949, at age 64, collapsing while reading a newspaper at his Beverly Hills home. His body was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The inscription on his grave reads, "No man is indispensable, but some are irreplaceable."

Beery died intestate. In the paternity suit, Gloria Schumm's attorneys demanded $104,135 against Beery's $2,220,000 estate. In February 1952, Judge Newcomb Condee approved a $26,750 settlement from the estate. Gloria Schumm accepted the settlement, and Beery's paternity of Johan Schumm was not acknowledged.

When Mickey Rooney's father died less than a year later, Rooney arranged to have him buried next to his old friend. "I thought it was fitting that these two comedians should rest in peace, side by side," he wrote.

Legacy For his contributions to the film industry, Wallace Beery posthumously received a motion-picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, located at 7001 Hollywood Boulevard. Another Coen brothers film, Hail, Caesar!, features a mockingly named "Wallace Beery Conference Room" scene within a Hollywood studio.

Beery is also mentioned in an episode of the 1980s sitcom classic “The Golden Girls.” Estelle Getty (Sofia) uses an analogy pairing Beery with Adolphe Menjou, a rival film star of the bygone era.

In the Sopranos episode "House Arrest" (S2 EP11), Richie Aprile makes a disparaging comment about Tony Soprano to Uncle Junior by saying that he saw him at the Garbagemen's Ball and that "You should see him in the golf outfit, he looked like Wallace Beery".

In Boardwalk Empire season 5, episode 4 ("Cuanto"), Lucky Luciano mocks Al Capone by calling him the "Italian Wallace Beery", comparing the volatile gangster to the famous Oscar-winning actor known for playing big, bumbling, or gruff characters. The insult triggers a fit of violent rage in Capone.

Selected filmography

His Athletic Wife (1913, Short) as Mr. Strong (film debut) A series of at least 29 Sweedie comedy films starting with Sweedie the Swatter, released 13 July 1914 In and Out (1914, Short) as Hans The Ups and Downs (1914, Short) Cheering a Husband (1914, Short) Madame Double X (1914, Short) as Madame Double X Two Hearts That Beat as Ten (1915, Short) (with Ben Turpin) as Fred Ain't It the Truth (1915, Short) as Harold Wallington The Slim Princess (1915) with Francis X. Bushman) as Popova The Broken Pledge (1915, Short) (with Gloria Swanson) as Percy The Fable of the Roistering Blades (1915, Short) as Milt A Dash of Courage (1916, Short) (with Gloria Swanson) as The Police Chief The Janitor's Vacation (1916) Patria (1917, Serial) as Pancho Villa Teddy at the Throttle (1917, Short) as Henry Black – Gloria's Rascally Guardian Cactus Nell (1917) The Little American (1917) (with Mary Pickford) as German Soldier (uncredited) Maggie's First False Step (1917, Short) as The Villain Are Waitresses Safe? (1917) uncredited Johanna Enlists (1918) as Col. Fanner The Unpardonable Sin (1919) as Col. Klemm The Love Burglar (1919) (with Wallace Reid and Anna Q. Nilsson) as Coast-to-Coast Taylor The Life Line (1919) (with Jack Holt) as Bos Soldiers of Fortune (1919) as Mendoza Victory (1919) (with Jack Holt and Lon Chaney Sr.) as August Schomberg Behind the Door (1919) (with Hobart Bosworth and Jane Novak) as Lt. Brandt The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1919) as Minor Role (uncredited) The Virgin of Stamboul (1920, directed by Tod Browning) as Sheik Achmet Hamid The Mollycoddle (1920) (with Douglas Fairbanks) as Henry von Holkar The Round-Up (1920) (with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) as Buck McKee The Last of the Mohicans (1920) as Magua 813 (1920) as Maj. Parbury / Ribeira The Rookie's Return (1920) as François Dupont Patsy (1921) as Gustave Ludermann The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) (with Rudolph Valentino) as Lieut. Col. von Richthosen A Tale of Two Worlds (1921 Goldwyn)(*extant; Library of Congress) as Ling Jo The Golden Snare (1921) as Bram Johnson The Policeman and the Baby (1921, Short) (with William Desmond and Elinor Fair) as The Crook The Last Trail (1921) as William Kirk Sleeping Acres (1921, Short) The Rosary (1922) as Kenwood Wright Wild Honey (1922) (with Priscilla Dean and Noah Beery Sr.) as Buck Roper The Sagebrush Trail (1922) as José Fagaro The Man from Hell's River (1922) (with Rin Tin Tin) as Gaspard, The Wolf I Am the Law (1922) (with Noah Beery Sr.) as Fu Chang Hurricane's Gal (1922) as Chris Borg Trouble (1922) as Ed Lee, the Plumber Robin Hood (1922) (with Douglas Fairbanks) as Richard the Lion-Hearted A Blind Bargain (1922) (with Lon Chaney Sr.) as Beast Man (uncredited) Only a Shop Girl (1922) as Jim Brennan The Flame of Life (1923) as Don Lowrie Stormswept (1923) (with Noah Beery Sr.) as William McCabe Bavu (1923) as Felix Bavu Three Ages (1923) (with Buster Keaton) as The Villain Ashes of Vengeance (1923) (with Norma Talmadge) as Duc de Tours Drifting (1923) (with Priscilla Dean and Anna May Wong) as Jules Repin The Spanish Dancer (1923) (with Pola Negri) as King Philip IV The Eternal Struggle (1923) as Barode Dukane Richard the Lion-Hearted (1923; sequel to 1922's Robin Hood) as King Richard the Lion-Hearted The Drums of Jeopardy (1923) as Gregor Karlov White Tiger (1923, directed by Tod Browning) as Count Donelli / Hawkes Unseen Hands (1924) as Jean Scholast The Sea Hawk (1924) as Captain Jasper Leigh The Signal Tower (1924) as Joe Standish Another Man's Wife (1924) as Captain Wolf The Red Lily (1924) as Bo-Bo Dynamite Smith (1924) as 'Slugger' Rourke Madonna of the Streets (1924) as Bill Smythe So Big (1924) as Klaus Poole Let Women Alone (1925) as Cap Bullwinkle Adventure (1925) as Morgan The Night Club (1925) (with Raymond Griffith and Vera Reynolds) as José The Lost World (1925; Arthur Conan Doyle dinosaur epic in which Beery portrayed Professor Challenger) with Lewis Stone as Sir John Roxton (and Doyle himself in a frontispiece) The Devil's Cargo (1925) as Ben The Great Divide (1925) as Dutch Coming Through (1925) as Joe Lawler In the Name of Love (1925) as Glavis Rugged Water (1925) as Capt. Bartlett The Wanderer (1925) (with Greta Nissen and Tyrone Power Sr.) as Pharis Pony Express (1925) (with Betty Compson and George Bancroft) as Rhode Island Red Behind the Front (1926) (with Raymond Hatton) as Riff Swanson Volcano! (1926) as Quembo We're in the Navy Now (1926) as 'Knockout' Hansen Old Ironsides (1926) (with Charles Farrell and George Bancroft) as Bos'n Casey at the Bat (1927) (with Ford Sterling and ZaSu Pitts) as 'Home Run' Casey Fireman, Save My Child (1927) (with Raymond Hatton) as Elmer Now We're in the Air (1927) (with Louise Brooks) (only twenty minutes survive) as Wally Two Flaming Youths (1927) as Beery – of Beery and Hatton (uncredited) Wife Savers (1928, lost film) (with Raymond Hatton and ZaSu Pitts) as Louis Hosenozzle Partners in Crime (1928) as Detective Mike Doolan The Big Killing (1928) as Powderhorn Pete Beggars of Life (1928) (with Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen) as Oklahoma Red Chinatown Nights (1929) (with Warner Oland and Jack Oakie) as Chuck Riley Stairs of Sand (1929) as Lacey River of Romance (1929) as General Orlando Jackson The Big House (1930) (with Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, and Robert Montgomery) as Machine Gun 'Butch' Schmidt Billy the Kid (1930; widescreen) (with Johnny Mack Brown billed as "John Mack Brown") as Pat Garrett Way for a Sailor (1930) (with John Gilbert) as Tripod A Lady's Morals (1930) as P.T. Barnum Min and Bill (1930) (with Marie Dressler) as Bill The Stolen Jools (1931; 20-minute ensemble short) (with Edward G. Robinson and Buster Keaton) as Police Sergeant The Secret Six (1931) (with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable) as "Slaughterhouse" Scorpio The Champ (1931) (with Jackie Cooper) as Andy "Champ" Purcell (Oscar-winning performance) Hell Divers (1932; early military planes) (with Clark Gable) as C.P.O. H.W. "Windy" Riker Grand Hotel (1932) (with Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Joan Crawford) as General Director Preysing Flesh (1932, directed by an uncredited John Ford) as Polakai Tugboat Annie (1933) (with Marie Dressler, Robert Young and Maureen O'Sullivan) as Terry Brennan Dinner at Eight (1933) (with Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore, and Jean Harlow) as Dan Packard The Bowery (1933) (with George Raft, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton) as Chuck Connors Viva Villa! (1934) (with Leo Carrillo, Stu Erwin and Fay Wray) as Pancho Villa Treasure Island (1934) (with Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore and Lewis Stone) as Long John Silver The Mighty Barnum (1934) (with Adolphe Menjou) as P.T. Barnum West Point of the Air (1935) (with Robert Young, Maureen O'Sullivan, Rosalind Russell, and Robert Taylor) as Big Mike Stone China Seas (1935) (with Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Lewis Stone, and Robert Benchley) as Jamesy McArdle O'Shaughnessy's Boy (1935) (with Jackie Cooper) as Captain Michael 'Windy' O'Shaughnessy Ah, Wilderness! (1935) (with Lionel Barrymore, Aline MacMahon, and Mickey Rooney) as Sid Miller A Message to Garcia (1936) (with Barbara Stanwyck and Alan Hale Sr.) as Sergeant Dory Old Hutch (1936) as 'Hutch' Hutchins The Good Old Soak (1937) (with Betty Furness and Ted Healy) as Clem Hawley Slave Ship (1937) (with Warner Baxter (first-billed) and Mickey Rooney) as Jack Thompson The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937) (with Noah Beery Sr.) as 'Trigger' Bill Port of Seven Seas (1938; written by Preston Sturges and directed by James Whale) (with Maureen O'Sullivan) as Cesar Stablemates (1938) (with Mickey Rooney) as Doc Thomas 'Tom' Terry Stand Up and Fight (1939) (with Robert Taylor and Charles Bickford) as Capt. Boss Starkey Sergeant Madden (1939, directed by Josef von Sternberg) (with Laraine Day) as Sgt. Shaun Madden Thunder Afloat (1939) (with Chester Morris) as John Thorson The Man from Dakota (1940) (with Dolores del Río) as Sgt. 'Bar' Barstow 20 Mule Team (1940) (with Anne Baxter and Noah Beery Jr.) as Skinner Bill Bragg, an Alias of Ambrose Murphy Wyoming (1940) (with Ann Rutherford) as 'Reb' Harkness The Bad Man (1941) (with Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, and Ronald Reagan) as Pancho Lopez Barnacle Bill (1941) (with Marjorie Main) as Bill Johansen The Bugle Sounds (1942) (with Marjorie Main, Lewis Stone, and George Bancroft) as Sgt. Patrick Aloysius 'Hap' Doan Jackass Mail (1942) (with Marjorie Main) as Marmaduke 'Just' Baggot Salute to the Marines (1943, in color) (with Noah Beery Sr.) as Sgt. Maj. William Bailey Rationing (1944) (with Marjorie Main) as Ben Barton Barbary Coast Gent (1944) (with Chill Wills and Noah Beery Sr.) as Honest Plush Brannon This Man's Navy (1945) (with Noah Beery Sr.) as Ned Trumpet Bad Bascomb (1946) (with Margaret O'Brien and Marjorie Main) as Zeb Bascomb The Mighty McGurk (1947) (with Dean Stockwell and Edward Arnold) as Roy 'Slag' McGurk Alias a Gentleman (1948) (with Gladys George and Sheldon Leonard) as Jim Breedin A Date with Judy (1948) (with Jane Powell, Elizabeth Taylor and Carmen Miranda) as Melvin Colner Foster Big Jack (1949) (with Richard Conte, Marjorie Main, and Edward Arnold) as Big Jack Horner (final film role)

Box office ranking

1932 – 7th 1933 – 5th 1934 – 4th 1935 – 8th 1936 – 15th, 8th (UK) 1937 – 15th 1938 – 12th 1939 – 15th 1940 – 8th 1941 – 19th 1942 – 18th 1943 – 18th 1944 – 11th 1946 – 11th

Awards and nominations Academy Awards Year Award Film Result1930 Best Actor The Big House 1932 The Champ

Venice Film Festival Year Award Film Result1934 Volpi Cup for Best Actor Viva Villa!

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Important facts

Birth century
Nationality
Awards
Academy Award for Best Actor; Volpi Cup for Best Actor; Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Also known as
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery

Family & relationships

Spouse
Gloria Swanson

People in Wallace Beery's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Wallace Beery's

Frequently asked questions

Who was Wallace Beery?

American actor (1885-1949)

When was Wallace Beery born?

Wallace Beery was born on 1 April 1885 in Clay County.

When did Wallace Beery die?

Wallace Beery died on 15 April 1949 in Beverly Hills.

What was Wallace Beery's occupation?

Wallace Beery was a stage actor, film actor, actor, film director and director.

What nationality was Wallace Beery?

Wallace Beery was American.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Wallace Beery

· Wikidata: Q322179

· DBpedia: Wallace Beery

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Wallace Beery. https://biography.guide/wallace-beery/

MLA: "Wallace Beery." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/wallace-beery/.

Chicago: "Wallace Beery." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/wallace-beery/.

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