Biography

May 12, 1932 · Los Angeles, California, USA

July 28, 2001 · Van Nuys, California, USA

Ronald Le Roy Overacker

When he made his screen debut, aged six months, in Monsieur Bébé (1933), the contract had to be signed by his grandfather, as not only was Baby LeRoy underage, but so was his 16 year-old mother.

Youngest motion picture actor to receive star billing.

At age 8, Baby LeRoy landed the lead role in Paramount's The Biscuit Eater (1940). This was to be his comeback film, after a two year absence from the big screen, when he last appeared, at age 6, in a bit part as himself in the comedy short, "Cinema Circus". He began filming the opening scene of The Biscuit Eater (1940) in October, 1939. The scene called for Baby LeRoy to swing across a lake holding a rope, but he lost his grip and fell into the lake as the cameras rolled. This happened both times that the scene was attempted. As a result, Baby LeRoy became ill with a very bad cold. By the next day he had lost his voice. As filming was on location in Albany, Georgia, and the crew and the rest of the cast could not wait the two weeks for the young actor to recover, as the doctor who examined LeRoy had determined, the film's director, Stuart Heisler, instead placed an emergency call to Paramount in Hollywood. Paramount wasted no time replacing Baby Leroy with another Paramount child actor, Billy Lee, who soon arrived with his father who was managing his career, while Baby LeRoy was sent back to Hollywood to recover from his illness, with a promise from Paramount that he would be given another lead role for another chance at a comeback. Unfortunately, that never materialized. Filming of _The Biscuit Eater_(1940)_ resumed the very day Lee arrived. This 1940 film became the one that he is still most noted for among the 40 films he appeared in between 1933 and 1942, while Baby Leroy is still said to have retired from motion pictures at age 4, four years earlier than this final chapter of his career.

Once had his milk spiked with gin by W.C. Fields.