Will Geer

Infobox actor
name = Will Geer


caption =
birthname = William Aughe Ghere
birthdate = birth date|1902|3|9|df=y
location = Frankfort, Indiana, USA
deathdate = death date and age|1978|4|22|1902|3|9
deathplace = Los Angeles, California, USA
spouse = Herta Ware (1934-1954)
notable role = "Grandpa" Walton in "The Waltons"
emmyawards = Supporting Actor - Drama Series
1975 "The Waltons"

Will Geer (9 March 1902 – 22 April 1978) was an American actor. Geer's real name was William Aughe Ghere. He is best known for his portrayal of the character Grandpa Walton, in the popular 1970s TV series "The Waltons".

Biography

Geer was born in Frankfort, Indiana and was heavily influenced by his grandfather, who taught him the botanical names of the plants in his native Indiana. He started out to become a botanist, studying the subject and obtaining a master's degree from the University of Chicago. While attending, he also became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.

He began his acting career touring in tent shows and on river boats. He worked on several left-oriented documentaries, including narrating Sheldon Dick's "Men and Dust", about silicosis among miners.

Geer made his Broadway debut as Pistol in a 1928 production of Much Ado About Nothing, created the role of Mr. Mister in Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, played Slim in John Steinbeck's play, Of Mice and Men, and appeared in numerous plays and revues throughout the 1940s. From 1948 to 1951, he appeared in more than a dozen movies including Winchester '73, Broken Arrow, and Bright Victory.

He was a social activist, touring government work camps in the 1930s with folk singers like Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie, and participating in the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike. [Michael Bronski, "The real Harry Hay", "Boston Phoenix", 31 October 2002 [http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm] ] In his biography, fellow organizer and gay rights pioneer Harry Hay details Geer's involvement in these strikes, and their brief relationship while organizing for the strike. [ Stuart Timmons, "The Trouble With Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement" (1990), page 64 and 67.] Geer is credited with introducing Guthrie to Pete Seeger at the Grapes of Wrath benefit Geer organized in 1940 for migrant farm workers.

He was blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the early 1950s. During that period, he built the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, California, which he and Herta Ware helped to found. He combined his acting and botanical careers at the Theatricum, by making sure that every plant mentioned in Shakespeare was grown there.

By the mid-fifties he was working sporadically on Broadway and in 1964 received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for "110 in the Shade".

Geer maintained a vacation home, called Geer-Gore Gardens, in Nichols Connecticut. He visited often and attended the local Fourth of July fireworks celebrations sometimes wearing a black tophat or straw hat and always his trademark denim overalls with only one suspender hooked. When Geer died shortly after completing the Sixth Season of The Waltons, the producers had his character die, as well.

He was married to the actress Herta Ware, best known for her performance as the wife of Jack Gilford in the film "Cocoon" (1985). Geer and Ware had three children, including actress Ellen Geer. Although they eventually divorced, they remained close. Ware also had a daughter, actress Melora Marshall, by another marriage.

As Will Geer was dying on April 22, 1978, of a respiratory failure at the age of 76, his family sang Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" at his deathbed, and recited poems by Robert Frost. Geer was cremated, and his ashes buried at the "Theatricum Botanicum" in the "Shakespeare Garden" in Topanga Canyon, near Santa Monica, California.

Filmography

*"Misleading Lady" (1932)
*"Wild Gold" (1934)
*"Spitfire" (1934)
*"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1935)
*"Union Pacific" (1939)
*"The Fight for Life" (1940)
*"Deep Waters" (1948)
*"The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre" (1948)
*"Intruder in the Dust" (1949)
*"Anna Lucasta" (1949)
*"Lust for Gold" (1949)
*"Johnny Allegro" (1949)
*"To Please a Lady" (1950)
*"Convicted" (1950)
*"Broken Arrow" (1950)
*"Winchester '73" (1950)
*"The Kid from Texas" (1950)
*"Comanche Territory" (1950)
*"It's a Small World" (1950)
*"The Barefoot Mailman" (1951)
*"Racket Squad" (1951)
*"The Tall Target" (1951)
*"Bright Victory" (1951)
*"Double Crossbones" (1951)
*"Salt of the Earth" (1954)
*"Mobs, Inc." (1956)
*"Advise and Consent" (1962)
*"Black Like Me" (1964)
*"East Side/West Side" (1964)
*"Seconds" (1966)
*"The Trials of O'Brien"(1966)
*"The President's Analyst" (1967)
*"In Cold Blood" (1967)
*"The Crucible" (1967)
*"Garrison's Gorillas" (1967)
*"Certain Honorable Men" (1968)
*"Bandolero!" (1968)
*"Gunsmoke" (1968)
*"The Invaders" (1968)
*"" (1968)
*"Run for Your Life" (1968)
*"I Spy" (1968)
*"The Reivers" (1969)
*"Daniel Boone" (1969)
*"Then Came Bronson" (1969)
*"Hawaii Five-O" (1969)
*"Bonanza" (1969)
*"Here Come the Brides" (1969)
*"Mayberry R.F.D." (1969)
*"The Moonshine War" (1970)
*"Shooting the Moonshine War" (1970)
*"Pieces of Dreams" (1970)
*"The Brotherhood of the Bell" (1970)
*"Of Mice and Men" (1970)
*"The Bill Cosby Show" (1970)
*"" (1970)
*"Medical Center" (1970)
*"The Name of the Game" (1970)
*"Brother John" (1971)
*"" (1971)
*"" (1971)
*"O'Hara, U.S. Treasury" ( 1971)
*"Alias Smith and Jones" (1971)
*"Cade's County" (1971)
*"Love, American Style" (1971)
*"The Waltons" (TV series) (1972 to 1978)
*"Jeremiah Johnson" (1972)
*"Napoleon and Samantha" (1972)
*"The Rowdyman" (1972)
*"The Scarecrow" (1972)
*"The Sixth Sense" (1972)
*"Bewitched" (1972)
*"Executive Action" (1973)
*"Isn't It Shocking?" (1973)
*"The Gift of Terror" ((Made for TV Film) (1973)
*"Savage" (1973)
*"Harry O" (1973)
*"Brock's Last Case" (1973)
*"" (1973)
*"Doc Elliot" (1973)
*"Kung Fu" (1973)
*"The ABC Afternoon Playbreak" (1973)
*"Night Gallery" (1973)
*"Hurricane" (1974)
*"Memory of Us" (1974)
*"Silence" (1974)
*"Honky Tonk" (1974)
*"The Hanged Man" (1974)
*"The Night That Panicked America" (1975)
*"The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery" (1975)
*"Dear Dead Delilah" (1975)
*"Moving Violation" (1976)
*"Hollywood on Trial" (1976)
*"Law and Order" (1976)
*"The Blue Bird" (1976)
*"Starsky and Hutch" (1976)
*"The Billion Dollar Hobo" (1977)
*"The Love Boat" (1977)
*"Eight Is Enough" (1977)
*"A Woman Called Moses" (1978)
*"Unknown Powers" (1978)
*"" (1978)
*"The Mafu Cage" (1979)

References

External links

*imdb|0002095
*ibdb name|id=41913|name=Will Geer