Editing Will Geer (section)

==Personal life==
Geer married actress Herta Ware in 1934; they had three children, Kate Geer, Thad Geer, and actress [[Ellen Geer]]. Ware also had a daughter, Melora Marshall, who was an actress, from another marriage. Although he and Ware divorced in 1954, they remained close for the rest of their lives.

In 1932, Geer met Harry Hay at the Tony Pastor Theatre where Geer was working as an actor. They soon became lovers.<ref>Kevin Starr, ''Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963'', Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 469</ref> Geer and Hay participated in a milk strike in Los Angeles. Later in the year, they performed in support of the [[1934 West Coast waterfront strike]], where they witnessed police firing on strikers and killing two.<ref>Hay, Harry; Roscoe, William. ''Radically Gay : Gay Liberation in the Words of Its Founder'', Beacon Press, 1996, p. 356</ref><ref name=timmons/>{{page needed|date=January 2024}} Geer was a committed communist; Hay later described him as his political mentor.<ref name=timmons/>{{rp|64–65}}<ref name="levy">{{Cite news |last=Levy |first=Dan |url=http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Ever-the-Warrior-Gay-rights-icon-Harry-Hay-has-3240144.php |title=Ever the Warrior: Gay rights icon Harry Hay has no patience for assimilation |date=June 23, 2000 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618234952/http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Ever-the-Warrior-Gay-rights-icon-Harry-Hay-has-3240144.php |archive-date=June 18, 2013 |page=DD–8}}</ref><ref>John Gallagher, "Harry Hay's Legacy" (obituary) ''The Advocate'', November 26, 2002; pp. 15; No. 877; ISSN 0001-8996</ref> Geer introduced Hay to Los Angeles' communist community and together they were activists, joining demonstrations for laborers' rights and the unemployed. Once, they handcuffed themselves to lampposts outside [[UCLA]] and handed out leaflets for the [[American League Against War and Fascism]].<ref name=timmons/>{{rp|64–65}} Geer became a member of the Communist Party of the United States in 1934. After Hay was increasingly political, Geer introduced him to the party.<ref name=timmons/>{{rp|67, 69}}<ref>D'Emilio, p. 59</ref> Geer became a reader of the ''[[People's World]],'' a West Coast Communist newspaper.<ref name="Denning">Denning, Michael, ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century,'' Verso (1998), {{ISBN|1-85984-170-8}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85984-170-9}}, p. 14</ref>

He maintained a garden at his vacation house, called Geer-Gore Gardens, in [[Nichols, Connecticut]]. He was often there and attended the local [[Fourth of July]] fireworks celebrations, sometimes wearing a black top hat or straw hat and always his trademark denim overalls with only one suspender hooked.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/columns/296-columnsreflections/52486-an-interview-with-will-geer-from-the-waltons.html |title=An interview with Will Geer from 'The Waltons' |access-date=February 22, 2011 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607170510/http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/columns/296-columnsreflections/52486-an-interview-with-will-geer-from-the-waltons.html |archive-date=June 7, 2011 }}</ref> He had a small vacation house in [[Solana Beach, California]], where his front and back yards were cultivated as vegetable gardens rather than lawns.