27 Facts About Will Geer

Will Geer was blacklisted in the 1950s by Hollywood after refusing, in testimony before Congress, to name persons who had joined the Communist Party USA.

Will Geer was born in Frankfort, Indiana, the son of Katherine, a teacher, and Roy Aaron Ghere, a postal worker.

Will Geer's father left the family when he was 11 years old.

Will Geer was deeply influenced by his grandfather, who taught him the botanical names of the plants in Indiana, his native state.

Will Geer began to be a botanist; he received a master's degree in botany at the University of Chicago.

Will Geer was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

Anglicizing his name, Will Geer began his acting career touring in tent shows and on riverboats.

Will Geer worked on several social commentaries for documentaries, including narrating Sheldon Dick's Men and Dust about silicosis among miners.

Will Geer created the role of Mr Mister in Marc Blitzstein's 1937 The Cradle Will Rock, played Candy in John Steinbeck's theatrical adaptation of his novella Of Mice and Men and appeared in numerous plays and revues throughout the 1940s.

Will Geer became a dedicated activist touring government work camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s with folk singers such as Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie.

In 1956, Guthrie and Will Geer released an album together on Folkways Records, titled Bound for Glory: Songs and Stories of Woody Guthrie.

Will Geer acted with the Group Theatre studying under Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg.

Will Geer acted in radio appearing as Mephistopheles in the 1938 and 1944 productions of Norman Corwin's The Plot to Overthrow Christmas.

Will Geer starred in it; it was produced, directed, and written by blacklisted Hollywood personnel.

Will Geer combined his acting and botanical careers at the Theatricum, cultivating every plant mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.

Will Geer created a second Shakespeare Garden on the theater's grounds.

Will Geer won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for The Waltons in 1975.

When Will Geer died shortly after completing the sixth season of The Waltons, the death of his character was written into the show's script.

In 1932, Will Geer met Harry Hay at the Tony Pastor Theatre where Will Geer was working as an actor.

Will Geer was a committed communist; Hay later described him as his political mentor.

Will Geer introduced Hay to Los Angeles' communist community and together they were activists, joining demonstrations for laborers' rights and the unemployed.

Will Geer became a member of the Communist Party of the United States in 1934.

Will Geer became a reader of the People's World, a West Coast Communist newspaper.

Will Geer maintained a garden at his vacation house, called Geer-Gore Gardens, in Nichols, Connecticut.

Will Geer had a small vacation house in Solana Beach, California, where his front and back yards were cultivated as vegetable gardens rather than lawns.

Will Geer died of respiratory failure at the age of 76 on April 22,1978 in Los Angeles.

Will Geer's remains were cremated and his ashes are buried at the Theatricum Botanicum in the Shakespeare Garden in Topanga Canyon, California.