Leon Beaumon - also credited as Leon Beauman, Beaumont, and Leon Duval
was a minor stage and film actor during the 1920s and 1930s. He wasborn Herman Bauman in 1898 on a farm near Youngstown, Ohio, to German
immigrant parents. He worked in steel mills as a youth, and studied
with his two brothers near Chicago to be a Catholic priest. However, in
1920 Herman had an argument with one of his superiors in the seminary
and set out for California to become a movie star, persuading his
younger brother, Marty, to join him. In their migration West, during
Prohibition, they worked in a still and ran hooch in Denver. Once in
Hollywood they changed their last name to Beaumon and Herman became
Leon. Leon and Marty lived in a boarding house in Hollywood along with
Clark Gable and
John Wayne before the latter two
found fame and fortune. They were all poor enough, and close enough in
size, that the four men owned one suit of clothes among them, and
scheduled their auditions around one another to wear the suit.
Leon's filmography is largely a mystery, due to the passage of time and
his legendary attempts to hide his true age; thus he gave few details
of his Hollywood career to his children. From a scrapbook, archival
sources, and his lifelong friend and fellow actor, the late Bob St.
Angelo, it is known so far that he had credited roles in
A Fight to the Finish (1925),
Clancy of the Mounted (1933),
Pioneer Trail (1938) and
The Law Comes to Texas (1939).
He had uncredited roles in
Cleopatra (1934),
Folies Bergère de Paris (1935),
Fugitive at Large (1939),
Die Elenden (1935),
Goldfieber (1935),
Harold Lloyd, der Sportstudent (1925),
The Mighty Barnum (1934)
The Sea Wolf (1930),
Das zauberhafte Land (1939),
Der König der Vagabunden (1930) and
Western Frontier (1935). He
often played the bad guy in Ken Maynard's
westerns. During his acting days, Leon ran an ice cream shop in
Hollywood. He was also an inventor, creating one of the first wireless
radios, the record changer on record players, and numerous other
gadgets. During World War 2, Leon joined the Army Air Corps and
remained stateside. Subsequently he became a real estate broker, and
eventually an industrial landlord. Leon remained single until 1961 when
he married Theresa (Hermine Gruber). They made their home in a Los
Angeles suburb and had three children, Florence, Anthony and Monique.
Leon never retired, even putting a roof on a building when he was in
his 70s. His beloved wife preceded him in death, in 1978. Leon passed
away from cancer in 1981, at the age of 83. His nephew and his nephew's
wife, Jim and Marj Smerber, generously took care of him in his illness
and finished rearing his minor children.
