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Ben Deeley, also known as J. Bernard Deeley and N. Bernard Deeley, according to various sources, grew up in Folsom, California. As a teenager, he competed to sign up 100 subscribers to the Sacramento Bee, which would earn him a free bicycle. He entered vaudeville in the 1900s, appearing in several blackface acts. For sixteen years, he wore blackface as the title character in an act entitled "The New Bell Boy." He also wrote the lyrics to several songs, including "The Alamo Rag" and "We've Kept the Golden Rule." Deeley entered films in 1914, beginning with comedy shorts. In early 1924, he returned to vaudeville, again in a blackface act.
He met his first wife, Maria Wayne, while doing vaudeville in Los Angeles. But they separated, and Wayne entered films. Deeley divorced her in Chicago, citing abandonment. He had already met actress Barbara La Marr, and they had appeared in a vaudeville act together. He married La Marr in New Jersey in 1918. But this marriage was also doomed. La Marr had married Philip Ainsworth in 1916, but they soon sued each other for divorce. Ainsworth was then sent to San Quentin, after passing bad checks. Eight months later, La Marr married Deeley. La Marr then contended her marriage to Deeley was not legal since she had not lived a year in Illinois. They separated, and La Marr filed for divorce, but eventually dropped the suit. She then sought an annulment, which was granted in 1920. Things got worse for Deeley when an attorney, Herman Roth, was arrested on extortion charges. The lawyer had threatened La Marr, telling her he planned to amend a divorce complaint he had filed on behalf of Deeley so as to include seven names of prominent film personalities (including Roscoe Arbuckle) as correspondents. Before these issues could be straightened out, Deeley died of double pneumonia in Los Angeles, on September 23, 1924. He was 46.
