George Richard Beymer Jr. (born February 20, 1938)[1] is an American actor, filmmaker and artist who played the roles of Tony in the film version of West Side Story (1961), Peter in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), and Ben Horne on the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991, 2017).

Beymer acted on television in Los Angeles for three years in a show called Sandy Dreams,[2] rehearsing after school during the week and recording it on Saturdays.

[5][3] George Stevens cast Beymer in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), playing Peter Van Daan.

"[5] After appearing in Playhouse 90, he had a supporting role in High Time (1960), a comedy with Bing Crosby and Tuesday Weld at 20th Century Fox.

"[5] In June 1960, Beymer was cast in the lead role of Tony in West Side Story (1961), a huge hit.

He shared a 1962 Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor with Bobby Darin and Warren Beatty.

[8] Beymer was given the role of Nick Adams in Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962) for Fox, with an all-star supporting cast.

Producer Jerry Wald says he and director Martin Ritt agreed that Beymer was "the young actor I think stands the best chance of being the next Gary Cooper.

[11] Producer Wald and director Franklin Schaffner cast Beymer in The Stripper (1963) with Joanne Woodward, which was critically acclaimed but not a big hit.

[13] During this time, he filmed the award-winning documentary A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer (1964), portraying the efforts of volunteers registering African-Americans to vote.

He made three appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Li Nalas in the episodes "The Homecoming", "The Circle", and "The Siege".

Beymer was seen in Under Investigation (1993), My Girl 2 (1994), State of Emergency (1994), The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson (1996), several episodes of Murder, She Wrote, A Face to Die For (1996), The Little Death (1996), Foxfire (1996), Elvis Meets Nixon (1997) and Home: the Horror Story.

One titled Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer?, which chronicled his obsession with photography throughout his life, was screened at the 2002 Twin Peaks Festival in Seattle.

[22] He was in Sadie's Waltz (2008), then focused on directing documentaries: The Passing of a Saint (2010), It's a Beautiful World (2014), Richard Beymer's Before...the Big Bang (2016), I Had Bad Milk in Dehradun (2017), and Behind the Red Curtain (2017).

[23] The avant-garde film The Innerview, which he directed, produced, wrote the screenplay, and edited, won the Josef von Sternberg Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1974.

[24] An active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, Beymer participated in Freedom Summer in Valley View, Mississippi.