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Beau Starr

American actor (born 1944)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ813336
Source-derived summary

Beau William Starr (September 1, 1944 – April 24, 2026) was an American actor who starred in film and television. He is known for his film role as Sheriff Ben Meeker in the 1988 horror film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers; he reprised his role in the 1989 sequel Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

Early life

Beau William Starr was born in Queens, New York City, on September 1, 1944. His younger brother is actor Mike Starr. Before Starr became an actor he was a professional football player known as Bill Starr. Primarily a tight end, he played college football for the Hofstra Pride and was signed by the New York Jets, with whom he served on the taxi squad for three seasons. He later played in the Canadian Football League with the Montreal Alouettes and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Career

In 1980, Starr acted in the play The Set-Up at The American Theatre of Actors.

Starr's well-known television role was in the 1990s Canadian television series Due South as Lieutenant Harding Welsh of The Chicago Police Department. He also starred in the 1980s television series Rituals, Bizarre and True Blue.

Editorial summary

“Beau Starr” enters the record as american actor (born 1944). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Beau, Starr and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1944, 2026, 1988, 1989—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1944-09-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Beau, Starr and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Beau Starr” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Beau, Starr and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q813336. VIAF identifies the subject as 49435351. The Library of Congress control number is no2012032585. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 2026, 1988 and 1989.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Beau Starr”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Beau Starr primary sources, Beau Starr archive and Beau research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Beau Starr”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Beau Starr” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.