John Beal (actor)
American actor (1909-1997)
John Beal (born James Alexander Bliedung, August 13, 1909 – April 26, 1997) was an American actor.
Early life
Beal was born James Alexander Bliedung in Joplin, Missouri. His father had a department store and Beal went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania "mapped for a commercial career." While at Wharton, Beal (who enrolled under his real name, James Alexander Bliedung) spent time drawing cartoons for the school's humor magazine and singing in productions of the Mask and Wig club.
Stage
Soon after graduating from college in 1930, Beal began acting with the Hedgerow Theatre. Beal originally went to New York to study at the Art Students League of New York. A chance to understudy in a play made him change his mind. He went on to appear in Russet Mantle and She Loves Me. Beal's Broadway credits include Three Men on a Horse (1993), The Seagull (1992), The Master Builder (1992), A Little Hotel on the Side (1992), The Crucible (1991), The Changing Room (1973), The Candyapple (1970), Our Town (1969), In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1969), Billy (1969), Calculated Risk (1962), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953), Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952 (1952), The Voice of the Turtle (1943), Liberty Jones (1941), I Know What I Like (1939), Miss Swan Expects (1939), Soliloquy (1938), Russet Mantle (1936), She Loves Me Not (1933), Another Language (1933), Another Language (1932), Wild Waves (1932), and No More Frontier (1931).
Film
Beal began acting in films with Another Language (1933), in which he recreated his stage role. He appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn (in the 1934 RKO film The Little Minister), among others; one of his notable screen appearances was as Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables (1935).
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3181015. VIAF identifies the subject as 65497065. The Library of Congress control number is n86140000. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1997, 1930 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Beal (actor)” 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.