"[2] While at Wharton, Beal (who enrolled under his real name, James Alexander Bliedung) spent time drawing cartoons for the school's humor magazine and singing in productions of the Mask and Wig club.

[2] Beal's Broadway credits include Three Men on a Horse (1993), The Seagull (1992), The Master Builder (1992), A Little Hotel on the Side (1992), The Crucible (1991), The Changing Room (1973), The Candyapple (1970), Our Town (1969), In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1969), Billy (1969), Calculated Risk (1962), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953), Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952 (1952), The Voice of the Turtle (1943), Liberty Jones (1941), I Know What I Like (1939), Miss Swan Expects (1939), Soliloquy (1938), Russet Mantle (1936), She Loves Me Not (1933), Another Language (1933), Another Language (1932), Wild Waves (1932), and No More Frontier (1931).

[8]: 776 He was hired to play the role of Jim Matthews in the television soap opera Another World when the show went on the air in 1964, but was fired by creator and headwriter Irna Phillips after only one episode.

The Walton family were excited for him and helped to fix up his home, only to learn that his wife had died a year earlier and, unable to accept this fact, he continued to look for her.

[8] He continued to work in films and television, notably as Judge Vail in the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows (for 9 episodes), and also the theater up until the 1980s.