Will Geer (born 9 March 1902 in Frankfort, Indiana - died 22 April 1978 in Los Angeles) was an American actor. Geer's real name was William Aughe Ghere. He is best known for his portrayal of the character Grandpa Walton, in the popular 1970s TV series The Waltons.
Geer was heavily influenced by his grandfather, who taught him the botanical names of the plants in his native Indiana. He started out to become a botanist, studying the subject and obtaining a master's degree from the University of Chicago. While attending, he also became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.
Geer was a social activist, touring government work camps in the 1930s with folk singers like Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie, and participating in the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike. In his biography, fellow organizer and gay rights pioneer Harry Hay details Geer's involvement in these strikes, and their brief relationship while organizing for the strike. Geer is credited with introducing Guthrie to Pete Seeger at the Grapes of Wrath benefit Geer organized in 1940 for migrant farm workers.
He began his acting career touring in tent shows and on river boats. He worked on several left-oriented documentaries, including narrating Sheldon Dick's Men and Dust, about silicosis among miners. In the 1950s he was blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. During that period, he built the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon, California, which he and Herta Ware helped to found. He combined his acting and botanical careers at the Theatricum, by making sure that every plant mentioned in Shakespeare was grown there.
He eventually made his way to Broadway, and in 1964 received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for 110 in the Shade.
He was married to the actress Herta Ware, best known for her performance as the wife of Jack Gilford in the film Cocoon (1985). Geer and Ware had three children, including actress Ellen Geer. Although they eventually divorced, they remained close. Ware also had a daughter, actress Melora Marshall, by another marriage.
As Will Geer was dying on April 22, 1978, of a respiratory failure at the age of 76, his family sang Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" at his deathbed, and recited poems by Robert Frost. Geer was cremated, and his ashes buried at the Theatricum Botanicum in the "Shakespeare Garden." .
Will Geer admired his grandfather, a man who said hello to trees by their Latin names and who had used what he brought back to Indiana from the California gold rush to build Frankfort's first opera house. Will pursued a college major in botany, from Chicago through a Master's degree at Columbia, but ultimately gave in to his need to perform. Starting with touring company tent shows and river boats, his six-decade career included Broadway, movies, television; many Shakespeare roles; one-man performances as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. His best know role was his last, Zebulon Walton, grandpa in the long-running television series "Waltons, The" (1972). Less well-known was his life-long role as a political agitator and radical ("Someone who goes to the roots, which is the Latin derivation of radical") and folklorist/folksinger - he toured U.S. government work camps in the 1930s, singing with Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs. In 1951, he formed the "Theatricum Botanicum," a repertory theater in Topanga Canyon, California, where he not only coached actors but also encouraged outdoor philsophical discussion and, of course, folksinging. At his deathbed, his family sang "This Land Is Your Land" and recited Robert Frost poems. His ashes lie in a corner of the Shakespearean garden on the grounds of his Theatricum Botanicum.
