Billy Bevan

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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.)

Rebecca

7.9

Bringing Up Baby

7.5

Suspicion

7.1

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

7.5

The Picture of Dorian Gray

7.1

Mrs. Miniver

7.0

I Married a Witch

6.8

Dracula's Daughter

5.9

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

6.4

A Christmas Carol

7.0

Jane Eyre

6.9

Terror by Night

6.6

The Invisible Man Returns

6.2

Cavalcade

5.5

National Velvet

7.2

Penny Serenade

6.6

The Lodger

6.3

Cluny Brown

7.2

The Pearl of Death

7.1

The Long Voyage Home

6.6

A Tale of Two Cities

6.8

Hans Christian Andersen

6.3

The Lost Patrol

6.4

The Return of the Vampire

6.0

The Invisible Man's Revenge

5.6

Alice in Wonderland

6.1

Waterloo Bridge

7.0

Me and My Gal

6.5

The Secret Garden

7.1

A Study in Scarlet

5.5

The Young in Heart

6.6

The Ed Sullivan Show

6.6

Lloyd's of London

7.2

This Above All

6.6

Mysterious Mr. Moto

5.7

Monte Carlo

6.3

Moss Rose

6.4

The Extra Girl

5.9

Payment Deferred

5.9

Tonight and Every Night

5.2

Three Secrets

6.4

Arrest Bulldog Drummond

6.6

The Trespasser

6.7

The Man Who Wouldn't Die

6.4

Transatlantic

5.5

The Golden Age of Comedy

6.9

Devotion

6.0

Riley the Cop

5.6

Forever and a Day

7.4

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

5.3

Stingaree

5.9

The Black Arrow

5.2

Personal Property

6.9

High Voltage

4.6

Shining Victory

5.9

Another Dawn

6.2

Counter-Espionage

6.2

Rogues of Sherwood Forest

4.8

Tin Pan Alley

5.0

Tell It to the Judge

6.3

Limehouse Blues

4.2

Slave Ship

4.8

The Wrong Road

4.3

The Last Outpost

6.0

Captain Fury

4.8

One More River

5.3

Journey's End

6.3

Born to Love

5.0

The Earl of Chicago

5.6

Chances

7.0

Fortunes of Captain Blood

7.1

The Girl of the Golden West

4.6

God's Country and the Woman

4.2

Butter Fingers

5.8

Lizzies of the Field

6.2

Be Reasonable

7.3

Looking Forward

6.2

Private Number

6.5

Champagne Charlie

4.8

We Are Not Alone

6.1

Peg o' My Heart

5.2

Vanessa: Her Love Story

6.0

Luxury Liner

6.3

The Hollywood Kid

5.3

Peacock Alley

4.3

Shadows Over Shanghai

5.7

Let Freedom Ring

6.0

A Small Town Idol

6.0

Let's Live a Little

6.3

The Widow from Monte Carlo

5.0

Vanity Fair

5.5

Sky Devils

5.5

Pack Up Your Troubles

6.2

Galloping Bungalows

5.0

Black Sheep

7.0

Gymnasium Jim

4.5

Blond Cheat

6.0

On Patrol

3.0

It Had to Be You

6.5

Confirm or Deny

3.8

London Blackout Murders

5.0

The Silent Witness

5.5

The White Sin

6.0

30 Years of Fun

3.0

The Secret Of St. Ives

6.0

Piccadilly Jim

6.5

Flirty Four-Flushers

5.0

The Sky Hawk

6.0

Too Much Harmony

5.0

Gertie's Gasoline Glide

5.0

Caravan

5.0

The Sheik Steps Out

4.0

Shock

6.0

Cupid In Quarantine

5.0

Fight Night

5.0

Distilled Love

5.0

Pop's Pal

0.0

Off His Trolley

0.0

Around the Town: British Film Stars and Studios

0.0

Bombs and Bandits

0.0

Gold Digger of Weepah

0.0

The Girl from Everywhere

0.0

The Bicycle Flirt

0.0

Motorboat Mamas

0.0

The Girl from Nowhere

0.0

Hubby's Weekend Trip

0.0

Don't Get Jealous

0.0

Calling Hubby's Bluff

0.0

Pink Pajamas

0.0

Musclebound Music

0.0

Hayfoot, Strawfoot?

0.0

East of the Water Plug

0.0

From Rags to Britches

0.0

Trimmed in Gold

0.0

Should Husbands Marry?

0.0

Pitfalls of a Big City

0.0

Should Sleepwalkers Marry?

0.0

Wandering Waistlines

0.0

One Spooky Night

0.0

The Cannon Ball Express

0.0

Inbad the Sailor

0.0

The Crossroads of New York

0.0

Sneezing Beezers

0.0

Little Robinson Corkscrew

0.0

Over Thereabouts

0.0

Peaches and Plumbers

0.0

Cured in the Excitement

0.0

The Bull Fighter

0.0

Weak But Willing

0.0

Pirates of the Air

0.0

His New Stenographer

0.0

Wandering Willies

0.0

Hubby’s Quiet Little Game

0.0

The Best Man

0.0

The Beach Club

0.0

The Slappiest Days of Our Lives

0.0

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies

0.0

Hoboken to Hollywood

0.0

Masked Mamas

0.0

Astray from the Steerage

0.0

Mystery Woman

0.0

Whispering Whiskers

0.0

Who's Who in the Zoo

0.0

Scotch

0.0

Circus Today

0.0

A Sea Dog's Tale

0.0

Ice Cold Cocos

0.0

Love and Doughnuts

0.0

Bright Eyes

0.0

Easy Pickings

0.0

Somebody's Widow

0.0

The Big Squeal

0.0

The Swordsman

0.0

When Summer Comes

0.0

Wall Street Blues

0.0

One Cylinder Love

0.0

The Duck Hunter

0.0

Her Rustic Romeo

0.0

Three Foolish Weeks

0.0

The Golf Nut

0.0

Thundering Taxis

0.0

She Whoops To Conquer

0.0

Nip and Tuck

0.0

Temptation

0.0

Uncle Jake

0.0

Giddap!

0.0

Honeymoon Beach

0.0

Song and Dance Man

0.0

The Quack Doctor

0.0

The Iron Nag

0.0

The Lion's Whiskers

0.0

Honeymoon Hardships

0.0

His Unlucky Night

0.0

Happy Times and Jolly Moments

0.0

A Small Town Princess

0.0

The Way to Love

0.0

For the Love o' Lil

0.0

Techno-Crazy

0.0