As one of the original Compass Players, a pioneering improvisational theater group in Chicago that later morphed into the famed Second City, theater director Walter Beakel helped create the foundation for the future of improv performances.
“No one had done it. … We were having to invent it as we went along, and he was wonderful at figuring out how to do it,” said Ted Flicker, a friend and former Compass Player member.
“He was that rarity in the theater,” Flicker said. “He was a man who could not abide an artistic lie. His whole life was dedicated to the truth.”
Mr. Beakel, 79, of Santa Fe and formerly of Chicago, died of heart failure on Tuesday, June 15, in Santa Fe.
Born in Cleveland, he helped care for his mother, who had multiple sclerosis. After her death when he was 12, he lived with his grandparents, said his son, David.
In high school, Mr. Beakel painted the sets for school plays until he landed a one-line role, delivering a punch line. When the audience burst into laughter, Mr. Beakel was hooked to the stage and performing. “He fell in love,” his son said.
He enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served in the South Pacific for two years, his son said.
After the war, Mr. Beakel received his master’s degree in directing from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago, his son said.
He remained in Chicago, taught acting and directed dozens of plays at theater companies across the country, including the Actors Studio in New York, his son said.
Mr. Beakel also directed a Chicago stage production of “Waiting for Godot” with then-unknown Mike Nichols and Harvey Korman at the Studebaker Theater in 1956, said Bernard Sahlins, a show producer.
His first three marriages, to a dancer and two actresses, ended in divorce before he married his fourth wife, an actress turned psychologist, Nancy Grauer, in the late 1960s. The couple had a son.
Mr. Beakel moved to Los Angeles in the ’60s and worked as an acting coach before becoming the director of talent at Columbia Pictures, scouting for promising, but unknown actors. He helped discover a young Harrison Ford, his son said.
After Columbia closed its program, he became an agent with Phil Gersh and then started his own business, Beakel and Jennings Talent Agency.
He retired in the late 1980s and moved to Santa Fe, where he directed community theater and mentored and taught actors.
“Every person he ever came across, he always encouraged them to be their own person,” his son said. “He was the most wonderful dad.”
Other survivors include his stepmother, Jane.
A memorial service will be held in September in Los Angeles followed by a service in Santa Fe.
