Life and Career
Beymer was born in Avoca, Iowa, the son of Eunice (née Goss) and George Richard Beymer, a printer. Beymer and his family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1940 where he began his acting career in 1949 in television. In the 1950s, he began appearing in films and achieved success in So Big (1953), Johnny Tremain (1957), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), and West Side Story (1961) before sharing a 1962 Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor with Bobby Darin and Warren Beatty.
In 1957, Beymer appeared on the syndicated American Civil War drama Gray Ghost in the episode "An Eye for an Eye". In 1961, Beymer began a brief relationship with Sharon Tate, who was working as an extra on his film, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man. Beymer encouraged Tate to pursue an acting career, and after she was introduced to his agent, Tate signed a contract with Filmways.
Beymer achieved a notable success in the film The Longest Day (1962). In 1964, he became involved in Freedom Summer in Mississippi. During this time, he filmed the award-winning documentary A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer, documenting the efforts of volunteers registering African Americans to vote. The avant-garde film The Innerview, which he directed/produced/wrote the screenplay for/edited, won the Josef von Sternberg Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1974. He had a featured role in the television series Twin Peaks in 1990, playing Ben Horne.
In addition to his work in films, Beymer has frequently appeared in guest roles in television series. These include three appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Li Nalas in the episodes "The Homecoming", "The Circle", and "The Siege". Beymer also appeared as Dr. Matthew Sheridan with Yasmine Bleeth in 1996 in the made-for-TV movie The Face, which was also known as A Face to Die For.
In 2007, Beymer completed his first book. The self-published novel Impostor: Or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer? is a semi-autobiographical account of a young actor's struggle to find himself amidst murder, mystery and mayhem.
Beymer's photographs of Twin Peaks cast and crew were featured in the gallery of behind the scenes photos on the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition that was released on October 30, 2007.
Beymer, who practices the Transcendental Meditation technique, currently resides in Fairfield, Iowa, where he continues to make movies, write, take photographs and paint.
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