Wallace Fitzgerald Bury is an American theater and film actor. Best known for his role as Bill in Ming and Bill (1930), as John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Villa Viva! (1934) and the main role in the film "Champion" (1931), and which he received the "Oscar" in the nomination "Best Actor".
Biography
Wallace Beery was born on April 1, 1885, near Smithville, Clay County, Missouri. The Wallace family had three children, and the future film actor was the youngest child.
In the 1890s, the Beery family stopped being farmers and moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where the head of the family took a job as a police officer.
Wallace received his secondary education at Chase School, as well as additional music education in the piano class.
The young man studied poorly, twice ran away from home. He eventually dropped out of school and took a job as a janitor at a railway station. At the age of 16, he left his father's house and joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant elephant trainer.
Career
Wallace Beery's career spanned over 36 years, and during that time he has played roles in more than 250 films. Beery's 1932 contract with Metro Godwin Meyer pledged the company to pay him $ 1 more than any other contract actor in the company. This made Wallace the highest paid actor in the world.
Among Wallace's relatives were actors: brother Noah Beery Sr. and nephew Noah Beeri Jr.
Beery's contributions to the film industry are posthumously immortalized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Wallace's Star is located at 7001 Hollywood Blvd.
Beery's career began in New York in 1904, when he found work in comic opera as a baritone and began performing on Broadway and in summer theater. In 1905 he appeared in the production of "Beauty of the West", and his first notable role with good reviews was the work in "Yankee Tourist".
In 1913, Wallace moved to Chicago to work at Essany Studios. For the first time on the screen Biri appeared in the short film "His athletic wife" (1913).
He then starred in the short film series Sweedy Learns to Swim (1914) and Sweedy Goes to College (1915). The last film starred actress Gloria Swanson, who became Beery's wife since 1916.
Other short films from the silent period with the actor Wallace Beery are Ups and Downs (1914), Charing and Husband (1914), Madame Double X (1914), Not True (1915), Two Hearts, that beat like ten "(1915)," The Fable of the Spinning Blades "(1915).
Of the silent full-length films, Biri starred in The Thin Princess (1915), The Broken Oath (1915) and The Line of Courage (1916).
In 1917, Beery starred in several comedies: "Little American", "Maggie's First Wrong Step" and "Teddy on the Gas". After that, he began to specialize in villainous roles in sound films.
In 1917, Biri played Pancho Vilyu in Patria (17 years later he would play the same character in Viva Villa!).
In 1919, Bieri will play a German villain in the film "The Unforgivable Sin". For Paramount Studios, he will star in The Love Cracker, Victory, Life Line and Behind the Door.
In 1920, Wallace became the main villain in the 5-episode film 813: The Virgin of Istanbul, in the movie Mollikodel, in the western The Round-Up, in the feature films Nobody Loves a Fat Man and The Last of the Mohicans.
In 1920, Beery played a minor role in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, after which he returned to the roles of the main villains in A Tale of Two Worlds (1921), Sleeping Acres (1922), Wild Honey (1922), I am the law”(1922). His brother Noah Biri Sr. also starred in the last film.
In 1922, Wallace played the large, rare and heroic role of King Richard the Lionheart in the historical film Robin Hood. The well-directed film enjoyed great commercial success, and a sequel was filmed in 1923, starring Wallace Beery in the title role of King Richard.
In the same 1922, Beery played a cameo (the role of himself) in the film "The Blind Deal".
In 1923, the famous actor plays the role of another monarch - the Spanish king Philip IV in The Spanish Dancer, as well as a minor role in The Flame of Life.
In 1923, along with his brother Noah Beery Sr., Wallace starred in the action melodrama Stormswept. The advertisements of those years declared the Beery brothers to be the greatest characters on the American screen.
Beery played his third royal role - the Duke of Tours - in the film Ashes of Vengeance (1923) and a similar role in another film, Drifting (1923). In the movie "Bavu", dedicated to the Bolsheviks and the 1917 revolution in Russia, Wallace played the title role.
Beery was a villain in the comedy Three Ages (1923), in the drama Eternal Struggle (1923), in The White Tiger (1923) and in the historical film Richard the Lionheart (1923).
Since 1925, Wallace Beery signed a contract with Paramount Studios and played a number of roles in the films of this company:
- a minor role in Adventure (1925);
- a starring role in the epic The Lost World (1925);
- starring in the detective films The Devil Cargo (1925), The Night Club (1925), The Pony Express (1925) and The Wanderer (1925);
- a comedic role in Behind the Front (1926) and Rescue Wives (1929);
- villainous role in the movie "Volcano!" (1926);
- a romantic role in Old Ironsides (1926) and Nights in Chinatown (1929);
- starring in the baseball film Casey in The Bat (1927);
- heroic roles in the films Firefighter (1927), Save My Child (1927), We Are Now in the Air (1927) and Beggars of Life (1928);
- in the Western Sand Ladder (1929).
In 1929, Paramount fired Beery and in 1930 he signed a new contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
In 1930, Wallace played a convict in the prison film Big House and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Male Actor.
Beery's second film, Billy the Kid (1930), was also a huge success. Wallace Beery reached the pinnacle of his fame with roles in the widescreen films "The Way to the Sailor" and "The Moral of the Lady".
After 1930, Wallace Beery was listed in Metro Goldwyn Meyer as a top-tier leading actor, a major movie star.
The sensational success of Ming and Bill, starring Wallace, cemented his position as a successful actor.
Since 1931, all films in Biri have consistently received sensational box office receipts:
- the gangster film "The Secret Six" (1931);
- specially written for Beery film "Champions", which became the record holder of those years at the box office and won an Oscar for Best Lead Role;
- the hit "Hell Drivers" (1932), starring Wallace as the young Clark Gable;
- star "Grand Hotel" (1932), for which the actor received the maximum fee in his entire career.
Beery starred in many other grossing films, but his career began to decline from 1938. Wallace's last films were Alias Gentleman (1947) and Big Jack (1949), both of which were box office flops. After that, Wallace no longer filmed.
Personal life
Wallace Beery's first wife is actress Gloria Swanson. The wedding took place in 1916: the groom was 30 years old, the bride was only 17. They divorced in 1918 at the initiative of Gloria. Wallse raped her on her wedding night and then forced her to have an abortion, she said.
Wallace's second wife is actress Rita Gilman, who was 13 years younger than Wallace. The wedding took place in 1924. During the period of their life together, the couple adopted a girl, Carol Ann Prister, born in 1930. After 14 years of marriage, Rita filed for divorce. It is noteworthy that the divorce proceedings lasted only 20 minutes. And 15 days after the divorce, Rita remarried.
In 1937, comedian Ted Healy, producer Albert Broccoli, local mobster Pat Di Cicco and Wallace Beery got into a drunken fight in the Trocadero cafe. As a result of this quarrel, Ted Healy was killed. The story received widespread publicity and caused a decline in viewers' interest in films with Wallace. That is why, since 1938, Beery's career began to decline.
Beery died on April 15, 1949 of a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills. The body was buried at Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
