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Parley Baer
Parley Edward Baer (August 5, 1914 – November 22, 2002) was an American actor in radio and later in television and film. Despite dozens of appearances in television series and theatrical films, he remains best known as the original "Chester" in the radio version of Gunsmoke, and as the Mayor of Mayberry (Roy Stoner) in The Andy Griffith Show, as well as Arthur J. Henson in The Addams Family as the Mayor, an insurance executive and as the city controller.
Parley Edward Baer was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He studied drama at the University of Utah.
Baer had a circus background, but he began his radio career at Utah station KSL.
Early in his career, Baer was a circus ringmaster and publicist. He left those roles for military service in World War II. In the 1950s, he had a job training wild animals at Jungleland USA in Thousand Oaks, California. Still later, he served as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Baer was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, attaining the rank of Captain. He served from 1942 to 1946 in the Pacific Theater, earning an Army Presidential Unit Citation, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and seven service stars.
Baer in the 1930s served on radio as director of special events for KSL. His first network show was The Whistler, which was soon followed by appearances on Escape (notably narrating "Wild Jack Rhett" and as the title patriot in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's "A Tooth for Paul Revere"), Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers (as various local sheriffs), Dragnet, The CBS Radio Workshop, Lux Radio Theater, The Six Shooter, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, to name a few.
In 1952, he began playing Chester, the trusty jailhouse assistant to Marshal Matt Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke, eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot" (later changed to "Chester Goode" in the televised version of the series, which featured Dennis Weaver in the role of Chester). Baer also worked as a voice actor on several other radio shows produced by Norman MacDonnell, performing as Pete the Marshal on the situation comedy The Harold Peary Show, as Doc Clemens on Rogers of the Gazette, and as additional characters on Fort Laramie and The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.
Other recurring roles included Eb the farm hand on Granby's Green Acres (the radio predecessor to television's Green Acres, in which Baer also appeared), Gramps on The Truitts, and Rene the manservant on a radio version of The Count of Monte Cristo. His later radio work included playing Reginald Duffield and Uncle Joe Finneman on the Focus on the Family series Adventures in Odyssey in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Parley Baer
Parley Edward Baer (August 5, 1914 – November 22, 2002) was an American actor in radio and later in television and film. Despite dozens of appearances in television series and theatrical films, he remains best known as the original "Chester" in the radio version of Gunsmoke, and as the Mayor of Mayberry (Roy Stoner) in The Andy Griffith Show, as well as Arthur J. Henson in The Addams Family as the Mayor, an insurance executive and as the city controller.
Parley Edward Baer was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He studied drama at the University of Utah.
Baer had a circus background, but he began his radio career at Utah station KSL.
Early in his career, Baer was a circus ringmaster and publicist. He left those roles for military service in World War II. In the 1950s, he had a job training wild animals at Jungleland USA in Thousand Oaks, California. Still later, he served as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Baer was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, attaining the rank of Captain. He served from 1942 to 1946 in the Pacific Theater, earning an Army Presidential Unit Citation, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and seven service stars.
Baer in the 1930s served on radio as director of special events for KSL. His first network show was The Whistler, which was soon followed by appearances on Escape (notably narrating "Wild Jack Rhett" and as the title patriot in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's "A Tooth for Paul Revere"), Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers (as various local sheriffs), Dragnet, The CBS Radio Workshop, Lux Radio Theater, The Six Shooter, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, to name a few.
In 1952, he began playing Chester, the trusty jailhouse assistant to Marshal Matt Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke, eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot" (later changed to "Chester Goode" in the televised version of the series, which featured Dennis Weaver in the role of Chester). Baer also worked as a voice actor on several other radio shows produced by Norman MacDonnell, performing as Pete the Marshal on the situation comedy The Harold Peary Show, as Doc Clemens on Rogers of the Gazette, and as additional characters on Fort Laramie and The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.
Other recurring roles included Eb the farm hand on Granby's Green Acres (the radio predecessor to television's Green Acres, in which Baer also appeared), Gramps on The Truitts, and Rene the manservant on a radio version of The Count of Monte Cristo. His later radio work included playing Reginald Duffield and Uncle Joe Finneman on the Focus on the Family series Adventures in Odyssey in the 1980s and 1990s.