Matthew Beard (actor, 1925)

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Matthew Beard (born January 1, 1925 in Los Angeles , California - † January 8, 1981 , ibid) was an American actor. He achieved fame in the 1930s as a child through the role of Stymie in the popular film series The Little Rascals .

Life

Career as a child star

Matthew Beard was born on New Year's Day 1925 to the priest Matthew Beard Sr. and his wife Johnnie Mae Beard (1900–1962). The African American family lived in poor conditions in east Los Angeles. Beard had seven sisters and six brothers. In order to support his large family financially, he was already in front of the camera at the age of two. After his first film roles were still relatively small, he became a member of the Kleine Strolche (Our Gang) in 1930 . He prevailed against 350 other applicants in a casting. In his first Our Gang films Teacher's Pet and School's Out he played the role of Hercules before his character was renamed "Stymie". The name "Stymie" (Eng .: to prevent) was invented by the director Robert F. McGowan , who was annoyed by Matthew's constant walking around on the film set. The black, oversized bowler hat that Stan Laurel had given him became the trademark of his figure . Like Beard, Laurel was under contract with producer and comedy specialist Hal Roach , who also produced Laurel and Hardy in addition to the little thugs .

Beard soon took on an important role with the Little Rascals, replacing the overgrown Allen "Farina" Hoskins as the series' most important black actor. However, Beard's character differed significantly from Farina, because while he appeared rather slow and calm, Stymie was portrayed as self-confident, quick-witted, somewhat headstrong and resourceful in solving problems. In total, he played the role of Stymie in around 35 short films until 1935, before he was replaced as the black lead actor in the series by Billie Thomas as "Buckweath". Stymie is still one of the most popular characters in the series to this day.

In addition to Matthew Beard, three of his siblings and even his mother had minor appearances in several films of The Little Rascals, often as members of the Stymie's family.

Further life

After the end of his career with the Little Rascals, Beard took on minor supporting roles in larger feature films such as Michael Curtiz 's adventure film Unter Piratenflagge (1935), the drama Jezebel - The Malicious Lady (1938) by William Wyler and the western Revenge for Jesse James (1940) directed by Fritz Lang . In the latter film, Beard played a bellboy. In the 1940s he attended high school in a troubled Los Angeles neighborhood, while his acting career came to a standstill. Beard became addicted to heroin and had to go to jail several times for his addiction. In the 1960s, he moved to a synanon in Los Angeles, where he lived for seven years and overcame his drug addiction. He later traveled to school classes giving lectures to warn of drug abuse and its consequences.

In 1973 Beard managed to reappear as an actor for the first time in twenty years. In the following years he took on regular guest roles in television series such as Emergency Call California , Starsky & Hutch and The Jeffersons and. He even took on a recurring role on the television sitcom Sanford and Son . He had his last role as "Cotton Eye" in the star-studded television miniseries Jenseits von Eden (1981), based on the novel of the same name by John Steinbeck . Towards the end of his life, Beard also appeared at the Little Rascals fan festivals and completed interviews about his time as a child star.

Death and personal life

On January 3, 1981, two days after his 56th birthday, Beard suffered a heart attack and fell off a staircase, causing serious head injuries. He subsequently contracted pneumonia, from which he died five days after the heart attack. He was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles with his Stymie hat, which he still wore regularly as an adult. Beard had at least one son named Dickie, named after his friend Dickie Moore , with whom he had played with the Little Rascals. When he died, he lived alone in a motel in Los Angeles.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthew Beard on Allmovie
  2. ↑ Article at the Google News Archive
  3. ↑ Ebony magazine on Google Books
  4. ↑ Article at the Google News Archive
personal data
SURNAME Beard, Matthew
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1981
Place of death Los Angeles , California