Scotty Beckett

Scott Hastings Beckett was born on October 4, 1929, in Oakland, California, and died on May 10, 1968. An American actor who worked across film, radio, television, and stage, he began his career as a child performer and appeared on Broadway in 1943 in the farce Slightly Married.

Beckett's path into show business began when his family relocated to Los Angeles and he was three years old. A casting director happened to hear him singing at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, where his father was being treated for an illness, and advised his parents that the boy had potential for film work. He auditioned and secured a part in Gallant Lady (1933), appearing alongside Dickie Moore. His father died that same year. In 1934, Beckett joined the Our Gang short subjects series, in which Moore had previously appeared. His character was the best friend and partner in mischief of George "Spanky" McFarland, and his recognizable look consisted of a crooked baseball cap and an oversized sweater that exposed one shoulder. He remained a regular in the series through 1935, when Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer took over his role. Beckett transitioned to feature films in 1936 and made a brief return to the series in 1939, playing Alfalfa's cousin Wilbur in Cousin Wilbur and Dog Daze.

Following his Our Gang tenure, Beckett built a substantial filmography in major Hollywood productions, typically cast as the protagonist's son or as the hero in his younger years. His credits from this period include Dante's Inferno with Spencer Tracy, Anthony Adverse with Fredric March, The Charge of the Light Brigade with Errol Flynn, Conquest with Greta Garbo, and Marie Antoinette with Norma Shearer. In Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves he portrayed Jon Hall's character as a child, and in Kings Row he played the younger version of Robert Cummings's character. In 1940, he appeared as Tim in My Favorite Wife, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, and took a role among the unborn children in Shirley Temple's The Blue Bird. He also had a central part in the wartime film The Boy from Stalingrad (1943), the same year he made his Broadway appearance in Slightly Married.

Beckett attended Los Angeles High School and pursued stage work during breaks from filming. His career continued into adolescence without significant interruption. He played the young Al Jolson in The Jolson Story, with his singing voice supplied by Rudy Wissler, and took the role of Junior on the radio program The Life of Riley. In 1947, he appeared in Dangerous Years alongside both Dickie Moore and Marilyn Monroe. That same year, MGM signed him to a contract, and his first role under that agreement was Will Parker in Cynthia. He subsequently played Oogie Pringle opposite Jane Powell in A Date with Judy, the film adaptation of the radio series of the same name. In 1949, he appeared in the war drama Battleground, and the following year he starred as Tennessee Shad in the comedy The Happy Years. Despite the success of those three films, his career declined rather than advanced, as demonstrated by his minor part in Nancy Goes to Rio, again with Powell.

Beckett enrolled at the University of Southern California but left when the demands of simultaneous schoolwork and film production became unmanageable. His personal life grew increasingly unstable during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in 1948. In 1954, he was cast as Winky, the comic sidekick, in the television series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, but was dismissed from the production after being arrested on a concealed weapons charge and for passing a bad check. Actor Jimmy Lydon, who had worked with Beckett on the Gasoline Alley films and replaced him on Rocky Jones, attributed his professional difficulties to excessive drinking and a pattern of refusing to repay gambling debts or personal loans. After his dismissal from Rocky Jones, Beckett made only a small number of additional film and television appearances, some of them uncredited, before permanently leaving the entertainment industry.

In the years following his departure from acting, Beckett worked in real estate and car sales and twice enrolled at universities with the intention of pursuing a medical degree. His legal troubles continued, including a second drunk driving arrest in March 1959 and an arrest in February 1957 after he attempted to cross the Mexican border carrying 250 stimulant pills. On August 14, 1959, he was arrested for possessing four Benzedrine pills and released after twelve hours when the county prosecutor declined to press charges. Four days after that arrest, at age 29, he crashed his car into a tree in West Los Angeles, sustaining a broken hip and a skull fracture. Lydon stated that the accident left Beckett severely disabled and dependent on a wheelchair and crutches for the rest of his life. In 1962, he attempted suicide following a heavy drinking episode.

Beckett was married three times and had one child. His first marriage, to professional tennis player Beverly Baker, took place on September 28, 1949, in Las Vegas; she was granted a divorce in June 1950. He married model and actress Sunny Vickers in 1951, and they had one son, Scott Jr., before divorcing in 1957. In 1961, he married Margaret C. Sabo, who remained with him until his death.

On May 8, 1968, Beckett checked into a Los Angeles nursing home after sustaining a serious beating under circumstances that were never clarified. He was found dead in his room two days later, on May 10, at the age of 38. A note and pills were discovered at the scene, but the Los Angeles County coroner determined that the exact cause of death could not be established despite an autopsy. Various media reports attributed his death to an overdose of barbiturates or alcohol, though no official cause was recorded. Beckett is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles.