Early life and education
Beuth was born to Philip R. Beuth, a program director at Capital Cities Television Corporation-owned stations, and Elizabeth C. Yost, a homemaker.1 His father's career required frequent family relocations, taking the family from Albany through Huntington, West Virginia, and eventually to Fresno, California, where Beuth attended Bullard High School, graduating in 1975.
His interest in performance emerged during his childhood years in Fresno. A 1971 move there introduced him to the Fresno Community Theater's children's program, where he developed an early enthusiasm for the stage.1 A notable early milestone came in December 1974, when he portrayed the Cowardly Lion in the theater's production of The Wizard of Oz. He also earned a Best Character Actor award for his portrayal of Herod in a Fresno Community Theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
After high school, Beuth performed briefly with the Good Company Players dinner theater before enrolling in the theater program at Fresno State University, where he studied for two years. He represented the school at the 1976 American College Theatre Festival in Washington, D.C., performing in The Liberty Dance of Henry Sparrow.1
In 1977, on the advice of family friend Wayne Rogers, Beuth relocated to New York City and studied at the William Esper Studio.1 During this formative period he supported himself by working as a waiter and a house painter while pursuing regional and summer-stock theater engagements.
Career
Television
Beuth began making sporadic daytime soap opera appearances in 1982, and spent three years working as a studio page for NBC's Saturday Night Live.1 In 1986, encouraged by his father, who had by then risen to vice-president of early morning programming at ABC Entertainment, Beuth moved to Los Angeles and signed with the Cunningham, Escott & Dipene talent agency.1 Guest appearances followed on prominent series including L.A. Law, Remington Steele, and Newhart. He also became affiliated with The Groundlings, the well-known Los Angeles improv and sketch comedy troupe.
His most sustained television role came in January 1996, when he was cast as Mueller on the syndicated talk-show spoof Night Stand with Dick Dietrick, stepping into the part after Peter Siragusa had played it for 24 episodes.3 Beuth portrayed Mueller as the loyal but perpetually mistreated sidekick to host Dick Dietrick (played by Timothy Stack), appearing in 72 episodes across two seasons (1996-1997). Several of his supporting castmates were fellow Groundlings alumni, including Lynne Marie Stewart, Shirley Prestia, and Christopher Darga.4
In more recent years Beuth has continued accumulating television credits, appearing in series such as The Conners, As We See It, and Minx (Netflix), as well as the limited series The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Monster. He also appeared in the upcoming series Lessons in Chemistry with Brie Larson.2
In 2011 he won an Outstanding Guest Actor award at LAWebFest for his performance in the web series Slanted.1
Film
Beuth has appeared in character roles across a wide range of feature films.2 A partial filmography includes:
- Ghostbusters II (1989) as the Orrefors Store Manager
- When Harry Met Sally... (1989) as a Man on Aisle
- Graveyard Shift (1990) as Cy Ippeston (the Stephen King adaptation, in which New York Times critic Janet Maslin noted his appearance "lend[s] a certain quirky appeal")5
- In the Line of Fire (1993) as a Man at Bank
- Outbreak (1995) as George Armistead
- The Story of Us (1999)
- Heartbreakers (2001)
- Grand Theft Parsons (2003)
- Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
- The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
He also appeared in The Fantastic Four, a mid-1990s production that was never given a commercial release.2
Theater and playwriting
Beuth has maintained a strong theatrical presence alongside his screen work, describing the stage as his primary creative home. His most significant dramatic work is Stories of the Season (1992), co-written with Robert George Harrison.1 The Pacific Theatre Ensemble production employed an inventive format: audience members selected gift boxes from a lobby display, and five actors then performed stories drawn from those selections while the audience enjoyed hors d'oeuvres. The Los Angeles Times praised its "regenerative fables [that] draw heavily on mythology, miracles, and American Indian lore."6 The production became a recurring Southern California holiday tradition, subsequently revived by the Gascon Theater Center, the Echo Theater Company, and venues in Santa Fe and Stony Brook.
In 2003 Beuth and Harrison co-created In the Valley of the Mist, a play featuring 55 custom-designed puppets and masks that follows a young boy through a series of fantastical encounters. The production was performed primarily by youth actors through Santa Monica's Virginia Avenue Project.1
In February 2024 Beuth performed a solo stage adaptation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles, directed by Peter Van Norden.7 The production was praised for its "gentle and genial humanity."8
Mask and puppet design
Beuth's parallel career as a visual and theatrical artist centers on the design and fabrication of masks and puppets. His serious study of the craft began in 1981 after he responded to an advertisement by theatrical artist Julie Taymor, who offered an eight-week maskmaking course.1 Working from his Manhattan studio apartment, Beuth experimented first with Silastic and later with neoprene to create masks that featured in his own theatrical productions.
Beyond his personal work, he creates custom pieces for Southern California theater companies and has taught theatrical maskmaking at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. After completing In the Valley of the Mist, he expanded into cast bronze sculpture, studying the technique for twelve years under Santa Monica artist Jonathan Bickhart.1
Ghostbusters
Beuth appeared in Ghostbusters II (1989) as the Orrefors Store Manager.9 His scene falls in Chapter 12, "Two in the Box," when the Ghostbusters are dispatched to Orrefors, a high-end crystal glassware gallery at 58 East 57th Street in Manhattan, after the store experiences a P.K.E. storm that causes its expensive glassware to float. The Ghostbusters deploy Polarity Rectification Tripods to address the disturbance, but the device causes all the glassware to fall and shatter upon deactivation. The team exits the store wearing dime-store Santa hats.
