
Billy Bevan
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Billy Bevan (born William Bevan Harris, 29 September 1887 – 26 November 1957) was an Australian-born vaudevillian, who became an American film actor. He appeared in 254 American films between 1916 and 1950.
Bevan was born in the country town of Orange, New South Wales, Australia. He went on the stage at an early age, traveled to Sydney and spent eight years in Australian light opera, performing as Willie Bevan. He sailed to America with the Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company in 1912 and later toured Canada. Bevan broke into films with the Sigmund Lubin studio in 1916. When the company disbanded, Bevan became a supporting actor in Mack Sennett movie comedies. An expressive pantomimist, Bevan's quiet scene-stealing attracted attention, and by 1922 Bevan was a Sennett star. He supplemented his income, however, by establishing a citrus and avocado farm at Escondido, California.
Usually filmed wearing a derby hat and a drooping mustache, Bevan may not have possessed an indelible screen character like Charlie Chaplin but he had a friendly, funny presence in the frantic Sennett comedies. Much of the comedy depended on Bevan's skilled timing and reactions; the famous "oyster" routine performed on film by Curly Howard, Lou Costello, and Huntz Hall—in which a bowl of "fresh oyster stew" shows alarming signs of life and battles the guy trying to eat it—was originated on film decades earlier by Bevan in the short film Wandering Willies.
By the mid-1920s Bevan was often teamed with Andy Clyde; Clyde soon graduated to his own starring series. The late 1920s found Bevan playing in wild marital farces for Sennett.
The advent of talking pictures took their toll on the careers of many silent stars, including Billy Bevan. Bevan began a second career in "talkies" as a character actor and bit player in roles such as that of a bus driver in the 1929 film High Voltage, a hotel employee in the Mae Murray film Peacock Alley, and the supporting role of Second Lieutenant Trotter in Journey's End in 1930. His starring roles had come to an end, however, and for the next 20 years he often would play rowdy Cockneys (as in Pack Up Your Troubles with The Ritz Brothers), and affable Englishmen (as in Tin Pan Alley and Terror by Night). He played a friendly bus conductor opposite Greer Garson in one of the opening scenes of Mrs. Miniver.
Bevan died in 1957 in Escondido, California, just before new audiences discovered him in Robert Youngson's silent-comedy compilations. (The Youngson films mispronounce his name as "Be-VAN"; Bevan himself offered the proper pronunciation in a Voice of Hollywood reel in 1930.)
Acting (174 movies)

Rebecca
1940

Bringing Up Baby
1938

Terror by Night
1946

Dracula's Daughter
1936

Suspicion
1941

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1936

Fortunes of Captain Blood
1950

The Pearl of Death
1944

Off His Trolley
1924

A Tale of Two Cities
1935

The Invisible Man Returns
1940

The Invisible Man's Revenge
1944

Payment Deferred
1932

Mysterious Mr. Moto
1938

Tonight and Every Night
1945

Journey's End
1930

The Girl of the Golden West
1938

Bombs and Bandits
1917

The Lost Patrol
1934

Gold Digger of Weepah
1927

The Girl from Everywhere
1927

The Bicycle Flirt
1928

The Girl from Nowhere
1928

Motorboat Mamas
1928

Counter-Espionage
1942

Cavalcade
1933

Calling Hubby's Bluff
1929

Pink Pajamas
1929

Musclebound Music
1926

East of the Water Plug
1924

The Man Who Wouldn't Die
1942

From Rags to Britches
1925

Should Husbands Marry?
1926

Pitfalls of a Big City
1923

One Spooky Night
1924

Wandering Waistlines
1924

The Crossroads of New York
1922

Little Robinson Corkscrew
1924

Sneezing Beezers
1925

Over Thereabouts
1925

Peaches and Plumbers
1927

Cured in the Excitement
1927

Weak But Willing
1929

God's Country and the Woman
1937

Pirates of the Air
1916

Luxury Liner
1933

His New Stenographer
1928

High Voltage
1929

Butter Fingers
1925

Wandering Willies
1926

Hubby’s Quiet Little Game
1926

Vanity Fair
1932

The Best Man
1928

The Beach Club
1928

Piccadilly Jim
1936

Mrs. Miniver
1942

Sky Devils
1932

The Slappiest Days of Our Lives
1951

Limehouse Blues
1934

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies
1925

Stingaree
1934

Slave Ship
1937

Hoboken to Hollywood
1926

Lizzies of the Field
1924

Flirty Four-Flushers
1926

Astray from the Steerage
1921

Be Reasonable
1921

The Sky Hawk
1929

Whispering Whiskers
1926

The Wrong Road
1937

Pack Up Your Troubles
1939

The Hollywood Kid
1924

Who's Who in the Zoo
1931

Scotch
1930

Shining Victory
1941

Peacock Alley
1930

Too Much Harmony
1933

Shadows Over Shanghai
1938

Galloping Bungalows
1924

Circus Today
1926

Looking Forward
1933

Hans Christian Andersen
1952

A Sea Dog's Tale
1926

Ice Cold Cocos
1926

Black Sheep
1935

Private Number
1936

Gymnasium Jim
1922

Moss Rose
1947

The Extra Girl
1923

Bright Eyes
1921

Penny Serenade
1941

Alice in Wonderland
1933

Somebody's Widow
1918

Gertie's Gasoline Glide
1916

Blond Cheat
1938

Champagne Charlie
1936

Arrest Bulldog Drummond
1938

Born to Love
1931

Caravan
1934

Let Freedom Ring
1939
Directing (1 movie)
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