British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC 71. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in The Champ (King Vidor, 1931).
German postcard by Ross Verlag for Das Programm von Heute, Berlin. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Wallace Beery in Viva Villa! (Jack Conway, 1934).
British Real Photograph postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 301.
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma Series by A.N., Paris, no. 79. Photo: Universal Film. Beery's name is misspelt as Berry.
Sweedie, the Swedish maid
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was born in Clay County, US, in 1885. He was the youngest son of Noah Webster Beery and Frances Margaret Fitzgerald and he and his brothers William C. Beery and Noah Beery became Hollywood actors.
Wallace attended the Chase School in Kansas City and took piano lessons as well, but showed little love for academic matters. Beery ran away from home at age 16 and joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant elephant trainer. He left two years later, after being clawed by a leopard. In 1904, Wallace joined his brother Noah in New York City, finding work in comic opera as a baritone and began to appear on Broadway as well as Summer stock theatre. His most notable early role came in 1907 when he starred in The Yankee Tourist to good reviews.
In 1913, he moved to Chicago to work for Essanay Studios, cast as Sweedie, The Swedish Maid, a masculine character in drag. Later, he worked for the Essanay Studios location in Niles, California. In 1915, Beery starred with Ben Turpin and his wife Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (Richard Foster Baker, 1915). This marriage did not survive his drinking and abuse.
Beery began playing villains, and in 1917 portrayed Pancho Villa in Patria (Jacques Jaccard, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1917) at a time when Villa was still active in Mexico. Beery reprised the role seventeen years later in one of MGM's biggest hits.
Beery's notable silent films include The Last of the Mohicans (Maurice Tourneur, 1920), Robin Hood (Allan Dwan, 1922) with Douglas Fairbanks (Beery played King Richard the Lionheart in this film and a sequel the following year called Richard the Lion-Hearted), Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaur epic The Lost World (Harry Hoyt, 1925), and Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928) with Louise Brooks.
Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Amatller, Series J, artist 13, no. 39. Photo: Wallace Beery in Bavu (Stuart Paton, 1923).
Italian postcard by G.B. Falci. Photo: Paramount. Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton in the American comedy We're in the Navy Now (Edward Sutherland, 1926).
Italian postcard by ZMC (Eliocromia Zacchelli e C., Milano), no. A. 62. Caricature: Nino ZA.
British postcard. Caption: Wallace Beery and his favourite plane.
Dutch postcard by Smeets & Schippers, Amsterdam. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Belgian postcard by Kwatta. Bilingual text on the back, praising Kwatta chocolate.
The highest-paid actor in the world
Wallace Beery's powerful basso voice and gruff, deliberate drawl soon became assets when Irving Thalberg hired him under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a character actor during the dawn of the sound film era.
Beery played the savage convict 'Butch', a role originally intended for Lon Chaney, Sr., in the highly successful prison film The Big House (George W. Hill, 1930), for which he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor.
The same year, he made Min and Bill (George W. Hill, 1930) opposite Marie Dressler. This film vaulted him into the box office first rank. He followed with The Champ (King Vidor, 1931), this time winning the Best Actor Oscar, and the role of Long John Silver in Treasure Island (Victor Fleming, 1934).
He received a gold medal from the Venice Film Festival for his performance as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (Jack Conway, 1934) with Fay Wray. Other Beery films include Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932) with Joan Crawford, Tugboat Annie (Mervyn Leroy, 1933) with Marie Dressler, Dinner at Eight (George Cukor, 1933) opposite Jean Harlow, and China Seas (Tay Garnett, 1935) with Gable and Harlow.
During the 1930s Beery was one of Hollywood's Top 10 box office stars, and at one point his contract with MGM stipulated that he be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio, making him the highest-paid actor in the world.
British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 71. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in The Champ (King Vidor, 1931).
British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, and Lionel Barrymore in Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932).
British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler in Tugboat Annie (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933).
British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: 20th Century. Wallace Beery and Lillian Harmer in The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933), distributed by United Artists.
Dutch postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen (M. B. & Z.), no. B335. Photo: M.G.M. Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery in Dinner at Eight (George Cukor, 1933). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 46. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in Treasure Island (Victor Fleming, 1934).
Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z., no. 5737. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Wallace Beery in Viva Villa! (Jack Conway, 1934).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli, 1936. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Wallace Beery in Westpoint of the Air (Richard Rosson, 1935).
Popular in the South
Wallace Beery starred in several films with Marjorie Main, but his career began to decline in his last decade. In 1943 his brother Noah Beery, Sr. appeared with him in the war-time propaganda film Salute to the Marines (S. Sylvan Simon, 1943).
He remained top-billed and none of Beery's films during the sound era lost money at the box office; his films were particularly popular in the Southern regions of the United States, especially small towns and cities.
Beery's first wife was actress Gloria Swanson; the two performed onscreen together. 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 and later tricked her into swallowing an abortifacient when she was pregnant, which caused her to lose their child. Beery's second wife was Rita Gilman. They adopted Carol Ann, daughter of Rita Beery's cousin. Both marriages ended in divorce.
In December 1939, the unmarried Beery adopted a seven-month-old infant girl Phyllis Ann. 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 filed no official adoption papers. No further information on the child appears to exist, and she is not mentioned in Beery's obituary. Wallace Beery died at his Beverly Hills, California home of a heart attack in 1949.
Italian postcard. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Wallace Beery in Messaggio Segreto, Italian release title for the American adventure spy film A Message to Garcia (George Marshall, 1936). The film was released at the Supercinema in Rome. The building of the former Supercinema still exists and is now the Teatro Nazionale.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 151. Photo: Roman Freulich.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 151b.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 151c.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 151d. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
British postcard by Picturegoer. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
British postcard by W & G, Ltd, no. S 9. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 297. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1946.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 30 April 2023.
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