Will Geer was an American actor and social activist.
Background
Geer was born William Aughe Ghere in Frankfort, Indiana, the son of Katherine (née Aughe), a teacher, and Roy Aaron Ghere, a postal worker. His father left the family when the boy was only 11 years old. He was deeply influenced by his grandfather, who taught him the botanical names of the plants in his native state.
Education
While attending Waller High School from 1916 to 1918, Will became involved in high school theater. The family returned to Frankfort in 1919, and Will graduated from Frankfort High School that same year. He entered the University of Chicago in 1919, graduating with a degree in botany in 1924. Later in 1924 he enrolled at Columbia University, but he soon left without completing a degree.
Career
Geer made his professional acting debut in 1920 as a walk-on for the Sothern-Marlowe Shakespearean Repertory Company in Chicago. For the next few summers Geer appeared in stock company, tent show, and showboat productions on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In 1928, he joined Minnie Maddern Fiske's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Knickerbocker Theater in New York City. From there, Geer continued with Fiske's touring company, which acted and sang at union halls and liberal political benefits. When Fiske died in 1931, Geer lost a major professional and political influence in his life and found himself unemployed in the midst of the Great Depression. He went to work as a steward on the Panama-Pacific Line, which operated ships between the east and west coasts of the United States. After an unsuccessful attempt to find steady work in films in Hollywood, Geer returned to theatrical work in Los Angeles. In 1934 and 1935 he helped to found the New Theatre Group, one of the numerous agitation and propaganda (or agit-prop) theater groups that grew out of the liberal and left-wing political activism of the New Deal years. Like many social activists of the 1930's, Geer looked favorably on the Soviet Union as a model workers' state, and he went to the Soviet Union for a few months in 1935 to work on a motion picture. Geer returned to New York City in late 1935 to work in agit-prop theater, culminating in a tour of textile workers' union halls in New England in May 1936. In 1937, Geer appeared in New York City's Federal Theatre Project's production of Unto Such Glory. Sometime during the 1930's he started using the name "Geer" instead of "Ghere. " In 1938, he joined a summer tour with the John Lenthier Troupe, which raised funds for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of Americans who were fighting alongside the Spanish Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. The tour consisted of about thirty one-night stands at union halls and theaters in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D. C. In 1939, Geer left for California to work on Fight for Life, a United States Film Service documentary. While in California he helped to organize migrant farm workers. In search of a ballad singer to accompany him, Geer met Woody Guthrie, a then-obscure folksinger and songwriter. They remained close friends until Guthrie's death in 1967. Geer returned to New York City in late 1939 and took over the role of Jeeter Lester in the successful Broadway production of Tobacco Road. During the 1940's he appeared in various short-lived Broadway productions and also worked on radio. Starting in the late 1940's, Geer made a successful move to Hollywood films, when he often appeared as a character actor in Westerns, usually portraying a gruff but kindly old man. In March 1951, Geer was called to testify before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to give the committee any names of the people he had known as associates in the leftist causes he had supported since the 1930's. His refusal to supply names led to his being blacklisted in Hollywood and he could no longer find film roles. He found acting jobs off-Broadway and with touring companies. At his home in Topanga Canyon, outside of Los Angeles, Geer used his lifelong passion for gardening to develop the Theatricum Botanicum, a beautifully landscaped outdoor theater, where he staged weekend productions of Shakespeare. By 1961 the McCarthy era was fading into history, and with it the blacklist. For the first time since 1953 Geer appeared in a film when the liberal director-producer Otto Preminger gave him a part in Advise and Consent. Other screen roles followed, including appearances in In Cold Blood (1967), The Reivers (1970), and Jeremiah Johnson (1973). He also appeared on television and continued his stage career, especially his longtime interest in Folksay Theatre. This art form used songs, skits, and tales to present American folklore to small audiences. During the 1960's and 1970's, Geer took shows, under the name "Will Geer's Americana" to theaters and college campuses across the country. Geer reached the pinnacle of financial reward and public acclaim in the last six years of his life. From 1972 to 1978 he played Grandpa Walton on "The Waltons, " a highly rated television series shown on CBS. Geer retained a deep commitment to social activism throughout his life, using his acting and ballad singing to entertain, increase social consciousness, and raise funds for political causes. Geer died in Los Angeles of a respiratory ailment.
On October 17, 1938 Geer married Herta Ware, a granddaughter of Ella Reeve ("Mother") Bloor, a suffragist and a founder of the American Communist Party. The wedding of Geer and Ware typified Geer's political activism. It was advertised in left-wing newspapers, and admission was charged to raise funds for the New Theatre League. Geer and his wife separated in 1954.