George Beban(1873-1928)
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
American actor-director-writer-producer of silent pictures, formerly a
singer and vaudevillian. A native of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, he
was one of four sons born to Rocco Beban, a Dalmatian immigrant, and
Johanna Dugan, from County Cork, Ireland.
He exhibited singing talent at an early age and was known in San
Francisco theater circles as "The Boy Baritone." By age 8, according to
a 1920 newspaper interview, "[his] first professional job was singing
at $8 a week at the Vienna Garden on Stockton Street. Then came boy
parts with the McGuire, Rial and Osborne stock company at the Grand
Opera house and the McKee Rankin stock company at the old California,
where I used the name of George Dinks."
After his father continued to block his career choice, getting him
fired from every one of those jobs, he ran away from home at the age of
14. He appeared in light opera and on stage with vaudevillians Weber &
Fields. He recalled in the same 1920 interview that, "Marie Cahill
offered me my first chance on Broadway, when I was about 22, in her
first starring vehicle, the musical comedy 'Nancy Brown,' at the
Bijou."
He played in vaudeville and legit theater for a number of years,
primarily doing caricatured Frenchmen, before making his film debut in
1915. In his play (later film) "Sign of the Rose," (A.K.A. "The Alien")
and in Thomas Ince's "The Italian," he sought to change the stereotype
of Italian immigrants as all being members of The Black Hand (mafioso).
He told the San Francisco Examiner in 1910 that he "learned how to
imitate Italian speech and talk Italian dialect with a proper accent,"
from his childhood days spent teasing and stealing fruit from local
Italian gardeners and grape growers. "Also that was where I first
learned to appreciate Italian character, to recognize that honesty and
industry and gentleness of spirit are its attributes."
He wrote and/or directed many of his later films, few of which survive.
He retired in late 1926 following the death of his wife, the stage
actress Edith Ethel MacBride, and by midsummer, 1928, completed work on
his dream home on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in Playa del Rey,
California. His August 19 housewarming became international news when
two guests, the Western star Tom Mix and the vaudevillian William
Morrissey, duked it out over Morrissey's comment that Mix's horse,
Tony, would have a career in the talkies, because at least he could
snort, but what could Mix do?
Five weeks later, while vacationing at June Lodge Dude Ranch at Big
Pine, California, Beban was thrown from a horse and seriously injured
on September 29, 1928. He died in Los Angeles several days later, from
the effects of the fall and from uremic poisoning. His remains were
cremated.
He was survived by his 14-year-old son,
George Beban Jr., who had appeared with
his father (using the stage name Bob White) in a few films, and who
would have a short career in the 1940's playing supporting roles.
George Beban, Sr. was the grandfather of the cinematographer Richard
Beban, and great-granduncle of the screen and TV writer Richard W.
Beban.
singer and vaudevillian. A native of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, he
was one of four sons born to Rocco Beban, a Dalmatian immigrant, and
Johanna Dugan, from County Cork, Ireland.
He exhibited singing talent at an early age and was known in San
Francisco theater circles as "The Boy Baritone." By age 8, according to
a 1920 newspaper interview, "[his] first professional job was singing
at $8 a week at the Vienna Garden on Stockton Street. Then came boy
parts with the McGuire, Rial and Osborne stock company at the Grand
Opera house and the McKee Rankin stock company at the old California,
where I used the name of George Dinks."
After his father continued to block his career choice, getting him
fired from every one of those jobs, he ran away from home at the age of
14. He appeared in light opera and on stage with vaudevillians Weber &
Fields. He recalled in the same 1920 interview that, "Marie Cahill
offered me my first chance on Broadway, when I was about 22, in her
first starring vehicle, the musical comedy 'Nancy Brown,' at the
Bijou."
He played in vaudeville and legit theater for a number of years,
primarily doing caricatured Frenchmen, before making his film debut in
1915. In his play (later film) "Sign of the Rose," (A.K.A. "The Alien")
and in Thomas Ince's "The Italian," he sought to change the stereotype
of Italian immigrants as all being members of The Black Hand (mafioso).
He told the San Francisco Examiner in 1910 that he "learned how to
imitate Italian speech and talk Italian dialect with a proper accent,"
from his childhood days spent teasing and stealing fruit from local
Italian gardeners and grape growers. "Also that was where I first
learned to appreciate Italian character, to recognize that honesty and
industry and gentleness of spirit are its attributes."
He wrote and/or directed many of his later films, few of which survive.
He retired in late 1926 following the death of his wife, the stage
actress Edith Ethel MacBride, and by midsummer, 1928, completed work on
his dream home on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in Playa del Rey,
California. His August 19 housewarming became international news when
two guests, the Western star Tom Mix and the vaudevillian William
Morrissey, duked it out over Morrissey's comment that Mix's horse,
Tony, would have a career in the talkies, because at least he could
snort, but what could Mix do?
Five weeks later, while vacationing at June Lodge Dude Ranch at Big
Pine, California, Beban was thrown from a horse and seriously injured
on September 29, 1928. He died in Los Angeles several days later, from
the effects of the fall and from uremic poisoning. His remains were
cremated.
He was survived by his 14-year-old son,
George Beban Jr., who had appeared with
his father (using the stage name Bob White) in a few films, and who
would have a short career in the 1940's playing supporting roles.
George Beban, Sr. was the grandfather of the cinematographer Richard
Beban, and great-granduncle of the screen and TV writer Richard W.
Beban.