John Beasley

John Beasley was an American actor who did not take up acting until his mid-40s, after working for Union Pacific. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1943. His film work included Rudy (1993), The Apostle (1997), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Walking Tall (2004), The Purge: Anarchy (2014), and Sinister 2 (2015). He played General Lasseter in The Sum of All Fears and Reverend C. Charles Blackwell in The Apostle, and in 1992 he played the father of Jesse and Terry Hall in The Mighty Ducks. He took many guest roles and television films, and his best known series part was Irv Harper on the WB show Everwood; he also appeared in the sitcom The Soul Man. In 2002 he started a theater and workshop in South Omaha bearing his name, devoted to staging live drama, especially work by or about African Americans, and he stayed with it for close to twelve years.