Wallace Beery

Wallace Beery
Beery c. 1930
Born	Wallace Fitzgerald Beery (1885-04-01)April 1, 1885 Clay County, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 15, 1949(1949-04-15) (aged 64) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Occupations	Actor film director
Years active	1904–1949
Spouses	Gloria Swanson ​ ​ (m. 1916; div. 1918)​ Rita Gilman ​ ​ (m. 1924; div. 1939)​
Children	1
Relatives	Noah Beery Sr. (brother) Noah Beery Jr. (nephew)

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 (1930) 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

Wallace Beery was born on April 1, 1885, in Clay County, Missouri, to Noah Webster Beery and Frances Margaret "Marguerite" Fitzgerald. He was the youngest of three boys. His brothers included Noah Beery and William Beery, both of whom had careers as film actors. The Beery family moved from Clay County in the 1890s to Kansas City, Missouri, where his father Noah worked as a police officer.

Beery attended the Chase School in Kansas City and took piano lessons as well. He show no interest in school. He ran away from home as a young boy, then returned home after a short while. After coming home, Berry dropped out of school and started working in the Kansas City train yards as an engine wiper. Beery ran away from home a second time in 1902 at age 16. He joined the Ringling Brothers Circus, working as an assistant elephant trainer. Beery left the circus in 1904 after being clawed by a leopard.

Career

Wallace Beery c. 1914

Beery as Sweedie the Swedish Maid (1914)

Early career in New York

After leaving the circus, Beery moved to New York City to join his brother, who was working there in vaudeville shows. Wallace Beery soon found work in comic opera as a baritone singer He appeared in productions on Broadway and in summer stock theatre. One of his first theater credits was the musical comedy The Belle of the West in 1905, which ran for only eight performances at the Grand Opera House. In 1907, Berry played R. Hewitt, a war correspondent, in the musical comedy The Yankee Tourist at the Astor Theater. The play was a popular success.

Short films

In 1913, Beery started working in silent films for Essanay Studios His first movie is cited as being a comedy short, His Athletic Wife (1913).Beery was then cast as "Sweedie", a female Swedish maid in 29 short comedy films from 1914 to 1916. Sweedie Learns to Swim (1914), only ten minutes long, co-starred Ben Turpin. Sweedie Goes to College (1915) starred Gloria Swanson. Berry married Swanson the following year.

While playing "Sweedie", Berry also performed in the following short films for Essanay:

• In and Out (1914)
• The Ups and Downs (1914)
• Cheering a Husband (1914)
• Madame Double X (1914)
• Ain't It the Truth (1915)
• Two Hearts That Beat as Ten (1915)
• The Fable of the Roistering Blades (1915)

Feature films

In 1915, Beery started appearing in comedy feature films He played "Popova" a tutor, in the Essanay film The Slim Princess (1915), with Francis X. Bushman. Beery also appeared with Swanson in the comedy The Broken Pledge (1915). This was Beery's final film with the struggling Essanay.

Beery and Swanson worked again in A Dash of Courage (1916), created by Triangle Film Corporation in Southern California. Beery played a lovestruck, German soldier in the World War I comedy The Little American (1917) for Artcraft Pictures with Mary Pickford, directed by Cecil B. De Mille. Beery also appeared in some comedies for producer Mack Sennett, Maggie's First False Step (1917) and Teddy at the Throttle (1917). .

Villain roles

In 1919, Beery transitioned into a series of roles as movie villain in dramas and action films. Beery's first villain was "Colonel Klemm", a German Army rapist, in the World Pictures drama The Unpardonable Sin (1919) with Blanche Sweet. Beery also played the villain in three films with Paramount Pictures for 1919:

• A unwanted suitor in The Love Burglar (1919) with Wallace Reid;
• A treasure-hunting criminal in Victory (1919), with Jack Holt, an adaptation of a Joseph Conrad novel
• A German U-boat commander in the war drama Behind the Door (1919)
• The Life Line (1919) with Holt.

Beery played the villain in five major film releases in 1920:

• 813, a mystery film by Charles Christie
• The Virgin of Stamboul, an adventure film for director Tod Browning;
• The Mollycoddle, an action film with Douglas Fairbanks. A highlight of the film was a fight between Fairbanks and Beery as they tumbled down a steep mountainside.
• The Round-Up, a western drama starring Roscoe Arbuckle as an obese cowboy. It had the tagline "Nobody loves a fat man."
• The Last of the Mohicans, an adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper novel, with Beery playing the Huron warrior "Magua"

Beery had a supporting part in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) with Rudolph Valentino. He was a villainous Tong leader in A Tale of Two Worlds (1921) and was the bad guy again in Sleeping Acres (1922), Wild Honey (1922), and I Am the Law (1922), which also featured his brother Noah.

Historical films

Richard the Lion-Hearted (1923)

Beery had a large, then-rare part as "King Richard I" in Robin Hood (1922), starring Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood. The movie did well and spawned a sequel the following year; Richard the Lion-Hearted, starring Beery in the same role.

Beery had an important unbilled cameo as "the Ape-Man" in A Blind Bargain (1922) starring Lon Chaney (Beery is seen crouching, in full ape-man make-up, in the background of some of the movie's posters), and a supporting role in The Flame of Life (1923). He played another historical ruler, "King Philip IV" of Spain, in The Spanish Dancer (1923) with Pola Negri.

Beery starred in an action melodrama, Stormswept (1923) for FBO Films alongside Noah Beery Sr. The tagline on the movie's posters was "Wallace and Noah Beery – The Two Greatest Character Actors on the American Screen."

Beery played his third royal, the Duc de Tours, in Ashes of Vengeance (1923) with Norma Talmadge, then did Drifting (1923) with Priscilla Dean for director Browning.

Beery had the title role in Bavu (1923), about Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. He co-starred with Buster Keaton in the comedy Three Ages (1923), the first feature Keaton wrote, produced, directed, and starred in.

Beery was a villain in The Eternal Struggle (1923), a Mountie drama, produced by Louis B. Mayer, who eventually became crucial to Beery's career. He was reunited with Dean and Browning in White Tiger (1923), then played the title role in the aforementioned Richard the Lion-Hearted (1923), a sequel to Robin Hood based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman; a print of Richard the Lion-Hearted is held at the Archives du Film du CNC in Bois d'Arcy.

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

As Challenger in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1925)

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 the adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, 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

Chester Morris and Wallace Beery in The Big House (1930)

With Marie Dressler in Min and Bill (1930)

Jackie Cooper, Edward Brophy, and Wallace Beery in The Champ (1931)

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

Producer 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, 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 the lawman "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 the comedy Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler. Directed by George W. Hill, the film was 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 played 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, 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

20 Mule Team (1940)

The status of Beery's films went into a decline. After an abrupt European vacation, Beery was in The Bad Man of Brimstone (1938) with Dennis O'Keefe (and Noah Beery Sr. in a cameo role as a bartender), Port of Seven Seas (1938) with Maureen O'Sullivan, Stablemates (1938) with Mickey Rooney, Stand Up and Fight (1939) with Robert Taylor, Sergeant Madden (1939) with Tom Brown, Thunder Afloat (1939) with Chester Morris, The Man from Dakota (1940) with Dolores del Río, and 20 Mule Team (1940) with Marjorie Rambeau, Anne Baxter, and Noah Beery Jr., enjoying top billing in all of them.

The Bad Man (1941)

Wyoming (1940) teamed Beery with Marjorie Main. After The Bad Man (1941), which also stars Lionel Barrymore and future President of the United States Ronald Reagan, and was the remake of a Walter Huston picture, MGM reunited Beery and Main in Barnacle Bill (1941), The Bugle Sounds (1941), and Jackass Mail (1942).

Beery appeared in a war film, a Technicolor comedy titled Salute to the Marines (1943), then was back with Main in Rationing (1944). Barbary Coast Gent (1944), an extremely broad Western comedy in which Beery played a bombastic con man, teamed him with Binnie Barnes. He did another war film, This Man's Navy (1945), then made another Western with Main, Bad Bascomb (1946), a huge hit, helped primarily by Margaret O'Brien's casting.

The Mighty McGurk (1947) put Beery with another child star of the studio, Dean Stockwell. Alias a Gentleman (1947) was the first of Beery's films to lose money during the sound era. Beery received top billing for the hit A Date with Judy (1949), a popular musical featuring Elizabeth Taylor. Beery's last film, again featuring Main, Big Jack (1949), also lost money according to Mannix's reckoning. Beery died of a heart attack three days after the picture's release.

Working relationship with peers

Brother Noah Beery in 1925

Many of Beery's colleagues considered him to be misanthropic and difficult to work with. The actor 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."

Rooney 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 [Strickling] 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."

Jackie Cooper, who made several films with Beery early in his career, called him "a big disappointment." Cooper accused Beery of upstaging him and making other attempts to undermine his performances, presumably out of jealousy. Cooper recalled impulsively throwing his arms around Beery after one especially heartfelt scene, but Beery gruffly pushed him away.

Margaret O'Brien, who co-starred with Beery at age nine in Bad Bascomb (1946), stated that she got along with him. However, she claimed that crew members had to stop Beery from constantly pinching her.

Personal life

Marriages and children

First marriage

On March 27, 1916, at age 30, Beery married 17-year-old actress Gloria Swanson in Los Angeles. The two had co-starred in Sweedie Goes to College. Although Beery had enjoyed popularity with his Sweedie shorts, his career had taken a dip, and during the marriage to Swanson, he relied on her as a breadwinner. According to Swanson's autobiography, Beery raped her on their wedding night. After learning she was pregnant, Beery allegedly tricked her into swallowing an abortifacient, causing her to abort the fetus. Swanson filed for divorce in 1917 and it was finalized in 1918.

Second marriage and adoption

On August 4, 1924, Beery married actress Rita Gilman (née Mary Areta Gilman; 1898–1986) in Los Angeles. The couple adopted Carol Ann Priester (1930–2013), the daughter of Rita's aunt, Juanita Prieste. After 14 years of marriage to Beery, Gilman filed for divorce in May 1939, in Carson City, Nevada. Within 20 minutes of filing for divorce, she won the decree. Gilman remarried 15 days later.

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 had known Schumm for about 15 years; she had played minor roles in six of his films. In the lawsuit, Schumm said that she and Beery had sexual relations on one occasion in May 1947. After learning she was pregnant, Schumm met with Beery at his home. He gave her contact information of a physician to examine her. She asked Beery to marry her to "legitimatize the expected child" (her words), but he refused.

A few months later, in August 1947, Schumm remarried her ex-husband, actor Hans Schumm. She gave birth in February 1948, to Johan Richard Wallace Schumm, Beery's son. Beery's lawyer, Norman Ronald Tyre, offered Gloria Schumm a $6,000 financial settlement, but denied her paternity claim. Schumm refused the settlement and went to court.

The paternity suit was heard in court after Beery's 1949 death. Schumm's attorneys demanded $104,135 from Beery's $2,220,000 estate. In February 1952, Judge Newcomb Condee approved a $26,750 financial settlement. Schumm accepted the settlement, but the ruling did not establish that Beery was the father of Johan Schumm.

Ted Healy altercation

In December 1937, comedic actor and Three Stooges founder Ted Healy was involved in a drunken altercation at Cafe Trocadero on the Sunset Strip. E. J. Fleming, in his 2005 book, The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine, asserts that Healy was attacked by three men: future James Bond producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, local mob figure Pat DiCicco and Beery. Fleming claims that this beating led to Healy's death several days later.However, contemporaneous news reports do not confirm that either Beery or DiCicco was present at the Trocadero. Broccoli did admit that he and Healy were in a fistfight. 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 — 515 pounds (234 kg) — off Santa Catalina Island in California 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 Roosevelt's action to Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. Led by an aging Beery, the ranchers 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's grave at Forest Lawn, Glendale

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."

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

• Beery received a motion-picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, located at 7001 Hollywood Boulevard.
• Beery is mentioned in an episode of the TV comedy The Golden Girls (1985 to 1992). Estelle Getty (Sofia) compares Beery with Adolphe Menjou, a rival film star of the same era.
• Beery is mentioned in the comedy film Barton Fink (1991). The lead character has been hired to write a wrestling screenplay to star Beery. It is called "a Wallace Beery wrestling picture" as though its own subgenre.
• In the HBO dramatic series The Sopranos (1999 to 2007) episode "House Arrest" (S2 EP11), mobster Richie Aprile makes a disparaging comment about mob boss Tony Soprano to his uncle, Junior Soprano. Aprile says that he saw Tony at the Garbagemen's Ball and that "You should see him in the golf outfit, he looked like Wallace Beery".
• In the HBO dramatic series Boardwalk Empire (2010 to 2014) season 5, episode 4 ("Cuanto"), Lucky Luciano mocks Al Capone by calling him the "Italian Wallace Beery". The insult triggers a fit of violent rage in Capone.
• The film Hail, Caesar! (2016) features a mockingly named "Wallace Beery Conference Room" scene within a Hollywood studio.

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

See also: Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll

• 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

• 
  Behind the Door (1919) with Hobart Bosworth
• 
  The Mollycoddle (1920) with Douglas Fairbanks
• 
  The Mollycoddle (1920) with Douglas Fairbanks
• 
  Wallace Beery in 1921
• 
  The Policeman and the Baby (1921)
• 
  The Golden Snare (1921)
• 
  The Golden Snare (1921) with Lewis Stone
• 
  The Last Trail (1921)
• 
  The Last Trail (1921) with Eva Novak
• 
  A Blind Bargain (1922) with Lon Chaney
• 
  Stormswept (1923) with Noah Beery
• 
  Stormswept (1923) with Noah Beery
• 
  Stormswept (1923) with Noah Beery Sr.
• 
  Bavu (1923)
• 
  Beery as Bavu (1923)
• 
  Richard the Lion-Hearted (1923)
• 
  Dynamite Smith (1924) with Bessie Love
• 
  Dynamite Smith (1924)
• 
  The Devil's Cargo (1925)
• 
  Adventure (1925) with Pauline Starke
• 
  Volcano! (1926) with Bebe Daniels
  and Ricardo Cortez
• 
  Casey at the Bat (1927)
• 
  Now We're in the Air (1927) with Louise Brooks
• 
  Now We're in the Air (1927) with Louise Brooks
• 
  Now We're in the Air (1927) with Raymond Hatton
• 
  Now We're in the Air (1927) with Raymond Hatton
• 
  Beggars of Life (1928) with Louise Brooks
• 
  Stairs of Sand (1929) with Jean Arthur
• 
  Min and Bill (1930) with Marie Dressler
• 
  The Secret Six (1931) with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable
• 
  Hell Divers (1931) with Clark Gable
• 
  Hell Divers (1931)
• 
  Hell Divers (1931)
• 
  Lionel Barrymore presents 1931 Oscar
• 
  Grand Hotel (1932)
• 
  Grand Hotel (1932) with Joan Crawford
• 
  Tugboat Annie (1933) with Marie Dressler
• 
  Dinner at Eight (1933) with Jean Harlow
• 
  The Bowery (1933) with George Raft
• 
  Viva Villa! (1934) with Fay Wray
• 
  Treasure Island (1934) with Jackie Cooper
• 
  Treasure Island (1934) with Jackie Cooper
• 
  China Seas (1935)
• 
  China Seas (1935) with Clark Gable
• 
  China Seas (1935)
• 
  Ah Wilderness! (1935)
• 
  The Good Old Soak (1937) with Ted Healy
• 
  The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937)
• 
  Stand Up and Fight (1939) with Robert Taylor
• 
  The Man from Dakota (1940)
• 
  The Man from Dakota (1940)
• 
  20 Mule Team (1940) with Noah Beery Jr.
• 
  Wyoming (1940) with Marjorie Main
• 
  Barnacle Bill (1941)

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Year	Award	Film	Result
1930	Best Actor	The Big House	Nominated
1932		The Champ	Won

Venice Film Festival

Year	Award	Film	Result
1934	Volpi Cup for Best Actor	Viva Villa!	Won

See also

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations

Further reading

• Wise, James. Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1997. ISBN 1557509379 OCLC 36824724

External links

• Wallace Beery at IMDb
• Wallace Beery at the Internet Broadway Database
• Wallace Beery and Gloria Swanson's Marriage
• Photographs of Wallace Beery