Noah Beery, Sr.

"Noah Beery" redirects here. For his son, see Noah Beery, Jr.

Noah Beery
Born	Noah Nicholas Beery (1882-01-17)January 17, 1882 Clay County, Missouri, U.S.
Died	Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Heart attack
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1898–1945
Spouse(s)	Marguerite Lindsay (1910–1946)

Noah Nicholas Beery (January 17, 1882 – April 1, 1946) was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 to 1945. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery and the father of character actor Noah Beery, Jr.. Beery was billed as either Noah Beery or Noah Beery, Sr. depending upon the film.

Early life

Noah Beery was born on a farm in Clay County, Missouri not far from Smithville. The middle son of Noah Webster Beery and Frances Margaret (Fitzgerald) Beery, he and his brothers William C. Beery (1879 –1949) and Wallace Beery became Hollywood actors. The Beery family left the farm in the 1890s and moved to nearby Kansas City, Missouri where the father was employed as a police officer. While still a young boy Beery got his first exposure to theatre, and at the same time showed budding entrepreneurship by selling lemon drops at the Gillis Theater in Kansas City. Possessed of a deep, rich voice even in his early teens, several of the actors at the Gillis Theater encouraged Beery to take singing lessons and consider a career as a performer. A summer of singing at Kansas City's Electric Park amusement park led to Beery leaving for New York City while just sixteen years old.

Career

Noah Beery (l.) in 1930

File:Poster - Man of the Forest (1933) 01.jpg

Noah Beery and Harry Carey (center drawing)

Brother Wallace Beery

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Noah Beery and son Noah Beery, Jr. in 1922

Son Noah Beery, Jr. in 1940

Noah Beery found work in vaudeville and in the chorus of musical comedies during his early years in New York. Soon though he would turn his attention to acting in melodramas of the period, often under the direction of William A. Brady. After a dozen years on the stage, he joined his brother Wallace in Hollywood in 1915 to make motion pictures. He became a respected character actor, adept at playing the villain. One of his most memorable characterizations was as Sergeant Gonzales in The Mark of Zorro (1920) opposite Douglas Fairbanks. The tagline on the poster for 1923's Stormswept proclaimed "Wallace and Noah Beery, The Two Greatest Character Actors on the American Screen."

Beery acted through the silent film era, and successfully made the transition to "talkies". He appeared in lavish early Technicolor musicals, such as The Show of Shows (1929), the widescreen musical Song of the Flame (1930; the movie's poster noted that "Noah Beery will thrill you with his wonderful bass voice, twice as low as any ever recorded"), Bright Lights (1930), Under a Texas Moon (1930) and Golden Dawn (1930; in which he wore blackface as an African native). He reached his peak in popularity in 1930, even recording a phonograph record for Brunswick Records with songs from two of his films. However, his popularity gradually declined while his brother Wallace became the highest paid actor in the world, winning an Oscar and arranging a contract with MGM in which he would be paid $1 more than any other actor on their roster. Noah Beery, Sr. played the flamboyant supporting role of Mae West's bar-owning lover until she leaves him for Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong (1933) while his brother Wallace performed in an extremely similar part, as the top-billed lead, later the same year in The Bowery. At the height of his career, Noah Beery began billing himself as "Noah Beery, Sr." in anticipation of his son's presence in films. After his death, his son dropped the "Junior" and became simply Noah Beery. Among other films, Noah Beery, Sr. and Noah Beery, Jr. appeared together in The Trail Beyond (1934) with John Wayne; Beery's son Noah, Jr. later became best known as James Garner's character's father in the 1970s television series The Rockford Files. Noah Beery, Sr. appeared in nearly 200 films during his career and in 1945 returned to New York City to star in the Mike Todd Broadway production of Up in Central Park.

Personal life

Noah Beery, Sr. married fellow actor Marguerite Walker Lindsey in 1910. Their first child died in infancy. Second child Noah Lindsey Beery (stage name Noah Beery, Jr. or Noah Beery, depending upon the time frame), born in 1913, was seriously ill in early childhood, prompting a brief move to Florida on the advice of doctors.

Death

Noah Beery, Sr. died on April 1, 1946 after suffering a heart attack at the Beverly Hills home of his brother Wallace. It was Wallace's birthday and in addition to celebrating the event the brothers were rehearsing a radio drama they were scheduled to perform later in the evening.

He was buried at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.

Partial filmography

• The Influence of a Child (1913)
• The Whispering Chorus (1918)
• Old Wives for New (1918)
• Believe Me, Xantippe (1918)
• The Squaw Man (1918)
• The Valley of the Giants (1919)
• In Mizzoura (1919)
• Everywoman (1919)
• The Mark of Zorro (1920) - Sergeant Pedro Gonzales
• The Sea Wolf (1920)
• The Call of the North (1921)
• Wild Honey (1922)
• The Heart Specialist (1922)
• I Am the Law (1922) with Wallace Beery
• Omar the Tentmaker (1922) with Boris Karloff
• The Power of Love (1922)
• Ebb Tide (1922)
• Stormswept (1923) with Wallace Beery
• The Spoilers (1923) with Milton Sills and Anna Q. Nilsson
• To the Last Man (1923)
• Hollywood (1923) cameo
• Heritage of the Desert (1924)
• Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924)
• Lily of the Dust (1924) with Pola Negri and Ben Lyon
• The Female (1924) with Betty Compson and Warner Baxter
• North of 36 (1924) with Jack Holt and Lois Wilson
• East of Suez (1925)
• Contraband (1925) with Lois Wilson
• The Thundering Herd (1925) with Jack Holt, Charles Ogle, and Tim McCoy
• The Light of Western Stars (1925)
• The Vanishing American (1925) with Richard Dix
• Lord Jim (1925) with Raymond Hatton
• The Crown of Lies (1926)
• Beau Geste (1926) with Ronald Colman, William Powell, and Victor McLaglen
• The Rough Riders (1927) with George Bancroft and Mary Astor
• The Love Mart (1927) with Boris Karloff
• Noah's Ark - Nickoloff/King Nephiliu (1928) John Wayne plays a Flood Extra
• The Godless Girl (1929)
• The Show of Shows (1929) with John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Myrna Loy, and Loretta Young
• The Four Feathers (1929)
• Song of the Flame (1930)
• The Way of All Men (1930)
• The Love Trader (1930)
• Tol'able David (1930)
• The Millionaire (1931)
• Shanghaied Love (1931)
• The Homicide Squad (1931)
• Riders of the Purple Sage (1931) with George O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill
• The Kid from Spain (1932)
• The Big Stampede - Sam Crew (1932) with John Wayne
• The Drifter (1932) with William Farnum
• The Thundering Herd (1933) with Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe, and Harry Carey
• To the Last Man (1933) with Randolph Scott, Esther Ralston, and Buster Crabbe
• Man of the Forest (1933) with Randolph Scott, Harry Carey, and Buster Crabbe
• She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West and Cary Grant
• The Trail Beyond - George Newson (1934) with John Wayne and Noah Beery, Jr.
• Mystery Liner (1934)
• King of the Damned (1935)
• The Crimson Circle (1936)
• I Live Again (1936)
• Zorro Rides Again (1937) - J. A. Marsden
• The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937) with Wallace Beery
• The Frog (1937
• Pioneers of the West (1940)
• Adventures of Red Ryder (1940) with Don 'Red' Barry
• Tennessee Johnson (1942) with Van Heflin
• Outlaws of Pine Ridge (1942)
• Overland Mail (1942) with Lon Chaney, Jr. and Noah Beery, Jr.
• 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

External links

• 1937 film interview with Noah Beery
• Noah Beery, Sr. at the Internet Movie Database
• Noah Beery, Sr. at the Internet Broadway Database
• Noah Beery, Sr. at AllMovie
• Noah Beery, Sr. at Find a Grave
• Literature on Noah Beery