'Everwood' star Beasley chooses family over acting, gets both

LOS ANGELES -- John Beasley always intended to pursue a career in acting. It just took him until his mid-40s to finally do it.

"When you're raising a family, it's more important to have something steady," said Beasley, the 59-year-old co-star of the WB's small-town family drama "Everwood" at 8 p.m. Mondays.

"I was a longshoreman. ... I even worked one day as a bill collector and knew that wasn't for me," he said with a robust laugh. "All I wanted to do was be an actor."

As narrator -- and school bus driver Mr. Irv -- Beasley is the voice of "Everwood," the tale of a New York neurosurgeon (Treat Williams) who moves his two children to a Colorado mountain town of quirky inhabitants after his wife's sudden death.

Creator Greg Berlanti said his producing partner, Mickey Liddell, found Beasley's audition tape "and always proclaimed, from day one, that John was the voice that he heard in his head as the narrator and as Irv's character. There's a realness to him, and John definitely captured the soul of what we're trying to do with the show."

Said Williams: "He has this innate humanity on camera. There are certain actors who are just acting and there are other actors who are just accessible, and John is instantly warm and human and accessible on camera. I've been pitching for more scenes with him."

Beasley would like more scenes -- period.

"Although I have a steady presence in the show as the narrator, I'm not getting the screen time," he said in a recent phone interview from Utah, where the series is shot. "I'm a pretty patient individual, but it does get frustrating because I haven't really been given anything challenging to really sink my teeth into."

Beasley knows something about patience. When he attempted an acting career in the 1970s, his wife, Judy, wasn't thrilled.

"She knew that I could do it, but the consequences were something that she didn't want with what she perceived to be an actor's life. I had to dedicate myself to my family, which was more important than anything else," said Beasley.