BUD GEARY
February 15th, 1898 -- February 22nd, 1946

Above: A publicity portrait of Bud Geary, a henchman for all seasons, from HAUNTED HARBOR (Republic, 1944).

Maine "Bud" Geary, like his friend Kenne Duncan, was a hard-working henchman and an exceptional athlete. With a tough, craggy, face and a distinctive, commanding voice to go with his physical presence, Bud made a worthy and menacing adversary for many serial heroes and a worthy accessory for many serial villains--when he wasn't flat-out stealing scenes from both hero or villain. Geary was one of those actors who could command attention by a simple facial expression or gesture, and even in a small bit role, he made himself noticed with ease.

Geary was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. I haven't been able to find any information on his early life, but he seems to have first come to prominence as an actor in silent films, including Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s ROBIN HOOD, in which Bud played Will Scarlet. Geary, a ruggedly handsome young athlete at this point in his career, shortly afterwards landed the position of lead juvenile with Schertzinger's Hollywood acting troupe, and played similarly dashing hero roles throughout the twenties. For some reason, his popularity meteorically dropped with the advent of sound, and he mostly played bit roles from 1930 to 1938, when he found a second vocation as a stuntman, and began to use his acrobatic talent to double various action heroes, beginning with Warren Hull in the classic serial THE SPIDER'S WEB (Columbia, 1938). He also played a brief henchman role in this serial, and thus kicked off a career as a cliffhanger heavy that would last for the next eight years. He also did stuntwork and played another minor villain in FLYING G-MEN (Columbia, 1939). His first role at Republic was the part of a crooked mine worker in DAREDEVILS OF THE RED CIRCLE (Republic, 1939), followed by DICK TRACY'S G-MEN (Republic, 1939), in which he played a thug/truck driver as well as doing some more stunting. Bud was also was a dungeon guard who menaced heroine Sheila Darcy and her brother William Corson in ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION (Republic, 1939). He had had a slightly more prominent role in ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER (Republic, 1940), as Pecos Bates, a badman who bumped off fellow henchman Ray Teal to keep him from talking but was hotly pursued by hero Don Barry and wound up being trampled to death. In KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED and MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN, two more Republic 1940 classics, he played key members of the henchmen pack--as Klondike in the first and Hallet in the second. In KING, he survived a fall into a lake following a fight with hero Allan Lane, but in DR. SATAN, he drowned under identical circumstances following a fight with Robert Wilcox.

Above: Don Barry (right) lands a terrific punch on Bud Geary's jaw in this tense scene from the classic Western ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER (Republic, 1940). Geary has been asserting to the townspeople that Barry's murdered father got "just what he deserved"--an unwise move.

In 1941, Geary managed to make appearances in all four of Republic's cliffhanger releases for the season. First, he played another small role (a thug named Pete) in ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (Republic, 1941), and then a large role in JUNGLE GIRL (Republic, 1941), as Brock, one of villain Gerald Mohr's three lackeys (the other two were Al Taylor and Joe McGuinn). Bud had the biggest role of the three, and outlived McGuinn, Taylor, and Mohr himself, being captured by heroine Frances Gifford’s native friends while hero Tom Neal punched Mohr out of an airplane. KING OF THE TEXAS RANGERS (Republic, 1941), also featured him as an important henchman named Kramer, who worked with Kenne Duncan, Roy Barcroft, Jack Ingram, and other formidable heavies to destroy the Texas oil fields despite the opposition of Slingin' Sammy Baugh. This time Bud survived till Chapter Ten, when he was dispatched while struggling with Baugh for a gun. His last serial role of the year was a small mug part in DICK TRACY VS. CRIME INC. (Republic, 1941). While performing cliffhanger chores, Bud began to be awarded larger and larger heavy parts in Republic and RKO's B-westerns, and in fact made no serial appearances in 1942. He returned in 1943 for Republic's G-MEN VS. THE BLACK DRAGON, as a minor henchman in the first chapter. He also popped up in G-MEN's sequel SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA (Republic, 1943), as a villainous Arab (he also performed stunt work for this title), and in THE MASKED MARVEL (Republic, 1943), in one of his few cliffhanger good guy roles, as a trucker doped by Japanese spies.

Above: Bud Geary (far right), Kenne Duncan (center), and Jack Ingram ready for mayhem in KING OF THE TEXAS RANGERS (Republic, 1941).

Next, Bud made two small henchman appearances in CAPTAIN AMERICA (Republic, 1943), and THE TIGER WOMAN (Republic, 1944), before getting one of his meatiest heavy parts in HAUNTED HARBOR (Republic, 1944). As a henchman named Snell in this top-notch South Seas thriller, Geary, together with Kenne Duncan as Gregg, carried out all of Roy Barcroft's orders and did his best to destroy stars Kane Richmond and Kay Aldridge and prevent them from discovering a clever gold-theft scheme. Poor Bud's hard work went unrewarded though, and he was destroyed in Chapter Fourteen by a bomb that Duncan had intended for Richmond.

Above: Bud Geary attempts to boathook Kane Richmond in this fight sequence from HAUNTED HARBOR (Republic, 1944).

Geary's final major serial role was also his finest. THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES (Republic, 1945) featured Roy Barcroft in the title role of a Martian invader who came to Earth to steal a scientist's rocket plans and build a fleet of space ships for the invasion of Earth. To further his ends, Barcroft killed the scientist (James Craven) and assumed his body as a perfect disguise. Bud was Hodge Garrett, a petty gangster who had been attempting to extort money from Craven, and tried to murder the scientist, unaware that the alien had forestalled him. Barcroft scared the daylights out of Geary by materializing from Craven's body, and the Martian promptly hired the shocked hood as his chief agent in gathering the materials necessary for the spaceship. Geary's initial meeting with Barcroft was priceless, as Bud orders the apparent professor to "Make it snappy--my time is valuable" and then drops his satisfied look and his gun at the same time and proceeds to stammer "who--what--are you?" Geary continued to steal scenes throughout the serial, with his practical gangster attitude ("My code is 'never pay for anything you can lift'") contrasting with the Purple Monster's lofty invasion plans. Bud nearly succeeded in stealing the entire cliffhanger from such pros as Barcroft and Craven, not to mention leads Dennis Moore and Linda Stirling.

Above: Bud Geary (right) and Roy Barcroft are up to no good in THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES (Republic, 1945).

Bud made an excellent “guest appearance” in Republic's KING OF THE FOREST RANGERS in 1946, as Rance Barton, the nephew of an old lady (Marin Sais) who joins villains Stuart Hamblen and Anthony Warde in an attempt to scare his aunt into selling her land. This subplot was only a part of the serial's larger land-grabbing plotline, and Geary's part was brief, but he completely dominated his one scene, hilariously characterizing the treacherous nephew as a sloppy, illiterate loafer. Geary’s final part, his first non-Republic role since 1939, was as one of the henchmen of the villainous “Chief Pilot” in HOP HARRIGAN (Columbia, 1946). He was not the leader of the “mug pack” but he stood out, as usual. No doubt Geary would have turned in many more stellar portrayals of thugs, mugs, and goons in countless cliffhangers, but in early 1946 he died in an automobile crash, and serial fans lost one of the best henchmen ever to utter a wisecrack or slug a good guy.

Bud Geary was one of the best and most colorful actors among all the serial henchmen, and even in the most insignificant bit roles, his buoyant personality and larger-than-life approach always managed to shine through. And when he got those larger roles, either in serials or B-westerns--look out! The guy could just plain walk away with the movie if you gave him half the chance.

Above: Bud Geary (far right) keeps a gun trained on George Chesebro while Fred Graham works him over in THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES (Republic, 1945).