Biography

Leon Beaumon - also credited as Leon Beauman, Beaumont, and Leon Duval - was a minor stage and film actor during the 1920s and 1930s. He wasborn Herman Bauman in 1898 on a farm near Youngstown, Ohio, to German immigrant parents. He worked in steel mills as a youth, and studied with his two brothers near Chicago to be a Catholic priest. However, in 1920 Herman had an argument with one of his superiors in the seminary and set out for California to become a movie star, persuading his younger brother, Marty, to join him. In their migration West, during Prohibition, they worked in a still and ran hooch in Denver.