Above: Billy Bevan without makeup, in 1923.^[1]The Blue Book of the Screen, 1924, P19. Via Lantern Digital Media History<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16656_20_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_20_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script>

The 5 second version

Born in Orange in New South Wales in 1887, Billy Bevan (William Bevan Harris) is hardly a forgotten Australian actor. He has been credited with over 260 appearances in Hollywood movies made between about 1916 and 1952, and his success there has been very well documented.

He was 25 years old when he arrived in North America in 1912, with a good reputation as an amateur in Australia. His arrival in the US was courtesy a contract with Nellie Chester‘s Pollard’s Juvenile Opera Company. This, and his subsequent experience as a vaudevillian in the US refined his skills. He first appeared in films in 1915 or 1916, but really made a name for himself working for the Mack Sennett studio after 1919. With the advent of sound he took supporting and bit character roles – often playing a cockney.

He moved to Escondido in San Diego County in the early 1930s, and increasingly took an interest in farming and conservation. He died there in 1957.
(This article does not list all of his many films, but links to some that are online can be found in the references)

<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Bevan in his usual makeup, in Sennett’s Wandering Willies, 1926</figcaption></figure>

Accounts regarding the birth of William Bevan Harris are sometimes inconsistent, although we know he was born in Orange, New South Wales, a provincial city about 250 kilometres west of Sydney in 1887.^[2]For inconsistencies – compare his biography at Central NSW Museums with Orange City Council’s wiki<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16656_20_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_20_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script> However, further confusing matters – he did not settle on the stage name of Billy Bevan until late 1914. In the meantime, he had used the stage names Bevan Harris in Australia and later Willie Bevan while with Pollards.^[3]This writer has used the name Bevan throughout, as it was the one consistent part of his name and the surname he chose to use in Hollywood<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16656_20_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_20_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script> See also Note 1 below.

Not withstanding his later success in Hollywood, his early life was firmly rooted in regional New South Wales. His father was Robert Harris, at the time of his birth a manager at Lindsay’s Brewery Co in Orange. His mother was a local Orange girl – Marion Jane Torpy, the oldest daughter of local politician James Torpy.^[4]See James Torpy (1832-1903) at the Orange City Council wiki<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16656_20_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_20_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script> Robert and Marion Harris can be traced living in Orange as late as 1904.

Various sources suggest Bevan attended the University of Sydney, but if he did, he failed to complete any study, as his name (or any combination of it) does not appear in its database of graduates and similar claims of University study were made of his contemporary Leon Errol. Rather, it appears he had been bitten by the performance bug and was appearing on stage even before he moved to Sydney.^[5]See for example, Leader (Orange, NSW) 30 Jun 1900, P4<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16656_20_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_20_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script>

Bevan Harris on stage in Australia

From mid 1909, Bevan Harris appeared in musical comedies with the Petersham Choral Society, a Sydney amateur group. These included Ermine and San Toy. Dated and offensive though readers today might find San Toy, (a “Chinese musical” of English origins), Bevan was a hit as Li, one of the central characters, and his “grotesque antics” kept the audience “convulsed with laughter.”^[6]<span id="footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16656_