- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWilliam Bevan Harris
- Height5′ 5½″ (1.66 m)
- Billy Bevan's show-business career began in his native Australia, with the Pollard theatrical organization. The company had two theater troupes, one which toured Asia and the other traveling to North America. Bevan wound up in the latter, performing in skits and plays all over Canada and Alaska then down into the continental US. While in a road company of the play "A Knight for a Day", Bevan was noticed by comedy pioneer Mack Sennett, who hired him on the spot. Bevan made many one- and two-reel shorts for Sennett over a ten-year period, and then transitioned into a reliable comic actor in many Hollywood comedies over the next 20 years or so (even doing voice-overs for cartoons). He made his last film in 1950, then retired. He died in Escondido, CA, in 1957.
- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com
- SpousesBetsy Rees(October 16, 1954 - November 26, 1957) (his death)Leah Leona Kohn(September 29, 1917 - April 24, 1952) (her death, 2 children)
- ChildrenJoan HarrisEdith Harris
- ParentsRobert HarrisMarion Jane Torpy
- Mispronounced "Bee-Van" in several Robert Youngson compilations, his last name actually rhymes with "seven".
- He appeared in three Best Picture Academy Award winners: Cavalcade (1933), Rebecca (1940) and Mrs. Miniver (1942). He was also in four other Best Picture nominees: A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Long Voyage Home (1940) and Suspicion (1941).
- Appeared in Mack Sennett films/shorts, 1919 to 1929.
- Possibly the first to film the "Oyster Stew" gag, later performed by Lou Costello and Curly Howard. In it, a live oyster grabs Billy's spoon, crackers, and even his tie as they battle for supremacy.
- Second wife, Betsy Rees, was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922.
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