Will Geer had a checkered life. A very reliable character actor in Hollywood movies in the late 40s, he was blacklisted in the early 50s because of his communist-related activities. When the blacklist was finally broken in the early 60s, directors started hiring him again. But by now, he was in his 60s himself and always played old men. Towards the very end of his life, he was cast as Grandpa Walton in the hit series "The Waltons," and became a much-beloved figure in American pop culture, despite the fact that he had been a communist and an uncloseted gay man.