Life After Our Gang
After his Our Gang days were over, Beckett won increasingly prominent roles in major Hollywood films, usually playing the star's son or the hero as a boy. Among his major credits are Dante's Inferno with Spencer Tracy, Anthony Adverse with Fredric March, The Charge of the Light Brigade with Errol Flynn, Conquest with Greta Garbo, Marie Antoinette with Norma Shearer; Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (playing Jon Hall's character as a child) and Kings Row (playing Robert Cummings's character as a child). He also had a central role in the wartime propaganda film The Boy from Stalingrad (1943).
Beckett attended Los Angeles High School and took time off from filming to try his luck on the stage. Adolescence didn't seem to hamper his career, as he won such important roles as that of young Al Jolson in The Jolson Story and Junior in the long-running radio show The Life of Riley. In 1947, he appeared alongside Dickie Moore in Marilyn Monroe's first film, Dangerous Years. In 1949, the actor was featured in the war drama Battleground and the following year he starred as the fast-talking Tennessee Shad in the MGM comedy The Happy Years.
He attended the University of Southern California, but dropped out when the combined workload of school and movies became too great. Although he was working steadily at MGM, his life grew increasingly tumultuous in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1948 he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. The following year he eloped with Beverly Baker, a tennis star, but their marriage dissolved within a period of months. His second marriage with Sunny Vickers produced one son, Scott Jr. In 1954 Beckett ran afoul of the law again, once for passing a bad check and once for carrying a concealed weapon.
Ironically, that same year Beckett's career took an upward turn, as he was cast as Winky, the comic sidekick in the popular TV show Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. This was to be his last major role. He made only a few subsequent TV and film appearances, some uncredited bit parts, before leaving show business forever.
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