Noah Beery, Sr.
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Noah Beery (January 17, 1882 – April 1, 1946) was an American actor. Born Noah Nicholas Beery in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, he and his legendary younger half-brother Wallace Beery both became Hollywood actors. Noah Beery worked in the theatre starting at the age of sixteen and by 1905 was performing on Broadway. After a dozen years on the stage, in 1915 he joined his brother in Hollywood to make motion pictures where he would become a respected character actor adept at playing the role of the villain. One of his most remarkable characterizations was as Sergeant Gonzales in The Mark of Zorro (1920) opposite Douglas Fairbanks; the Beery brothers always offered extremely energetic portrayals and gave the audience something extraordinary to behold.
Noah Beery worked during the silent film era (giving a fine performance as Sgt. Lejaune in the 1926 Beau Geste) and successfully made the transition to "talkies". He had a pleasant singing voice and he appeared in a number of lavish early Technicolor musicals such as The Show of Shows (1929), Song of the Flame (1930), Bright Lights (1930), Under A Texas Moon (1930) and Golden Dawn (1930), (in which he wore blackface makeup as an African native). He seems to have reached his peak in popularity in 1930, even recording a phonograph record for Brunswick Records with songs from two of his films. Like his brother Wallace, he had an amazingly powerful and distinctive voice, and while he carved out a long and memorable career, he gradually lost popularity while his brother eventually gained a position in the screen pantheon (Wallace was the highest paid actor in the world in 1932, the year he won an Oscar). During a career that spanned three decades, Noah appeared in nearly two hundred films. In 1945 he returned to star in the Mike Todd Broadway production of "Up in Central Park."
Beery died in 1946 (on his brother Wallace's birthday) in Beverly Hills, California of a heart attack and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, USA.
[edit] Noah Beery, Jr.
Noah Beery's son, Noah Beery, Jr. (1913-1994), also became an extremely successful character actor with a career spanning several decades, most notably as "Rocky," the father of James Garner's character in the television series The Rockford Files (1974-1980).
At the height of his career, Noah Beery began billing himself as "Noah Beery, Sr." in anticipation of his son's presence in films, but after his death, his son dropped the "Junior" from his own name and became "Noah Beery".
[edit] Partial filmography
- The Influence of a Child (1913)
- The Mark of Zorro (1920) with Douglas Fairbanks
- I Am the Law (1922) with Wallace Beery
- Stormswept (1923) with Wallace Beery
- The Spoilers (1923) with Milton Sills and Anna Q. Nilsson
- The Thundering Herd (1925) with Jack Holt, Charles Ogle, and Tim McCoy
- Lord Jim (1925) with Raymond Hatton
- Beau Geste (1926) with Ronald Colman, William Powell, and Victor McLaglen
- The Rough Riders (1927) with George Bancroft and Mary Astor
- The Show of Shows (1929) with John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Myrna Loy, Sally Blane, and Loretta Young
- Riders of the Purple Sage (1931) with George O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill
- The Thundering Herd (1933) with Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe, and Harry Carey
- She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West and Cary Grant
- The Trail Beyond (1934) with John Wayne and Noah Beery, Jr.
- Zorro Rides Again (1937) with John Carroll and Duncan Renaldo
- The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937) with Wallace Beery
- Adventures of Red Ryder (1940) with Don 'Red' Barry
- Salute to the Marines (1943, in color) with Wallace Beery
- Barbary Coast Gent (1944) with Wallace Beery and Chill Wills
- This Man's Navy (1945) with Wallace Beery
- Sing Me a Song of Texas (1945) with Tom Tyler
