Will Geer

Will Geer was an American actor best known and beloved as Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton on The Waltons (CBS, 1972–1978, Emmy Award). He was gay and had a decades-long relationship with Harry Hay — the founder of the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest gay rights organizations in the United States — from the 1930s into the 1950s. Geer was blacklisted during the McCarthy era partly due to his left-wing political associations, which overlapped with his relationship with Hay. His homosexuality has been documented by Hay's biographers and in Geer's own family's accounts. His story represents the intersection of queer and progressive political history in mid-century America.