James Andrews Beard was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1903. He was the son of Mary Elizabeth Beard, who ran a boardinghouse in Portland before he was born, and John Beard, a customs inspector. Beard was influenced from an early age by his mother's passion for cooking and food; by the family's Chinese chef, Jue-Let; and the family's summers in Gearhart, Oregon. Beard also knew from an early age that he was gay, as he would discuss in audio recordings made late in his life for a never-completed memoir.

Beard graduated from Washington High School in Portland, then began attending Reed College, but he was expelled in 1921, during his freshman year. Officially, Reed cited poor academic performance, but the expulsion followed the discovery of an affair between Beard and a male professor. After Beard left Reed, he pursued a career in theater. The pursuit took him to London, England; Paris, France; and Hollywood, California. He performed in operas, stage plays, and movies. In 1929, he returned to Portland, and continued acting, as well as set designing and directing, at the Portland Civic Theater.

In the late 1930s, Beard moved to New York, New York, where he began cooking for friends. He and a partner started a catering business, Hors D’Oeuvre, Inc., and in 1940, he published his first cookbook. He served briefly in the U.S. Army and with the United Seamen's Service during World War II, then returned to New York City. He starred in the first television cooking show, "I Love to Eat," on NBC in 1946-1947, and continued to publish cookbooks, as well as to write food articles for magazines and newspapers and to consult for restaurants. In 1954, the New York Times dubbed him the "Dean of American Cookery." Beard started the James Beard Cooking School in New York City in the mid-1950s, and published an autobiography, “Delights and Prejudices,” in 1964. Beginning in the 1970s, he returned to Oregon each summer to teach cooking classes at Seaside High School. He received an honorary degree from Reed College in 1976. Beard taught his last cooking class in Oregon in 1981, and published his final book in 1983. He died in 1985.

Sources: Information provided by Beard in his interview; "James Beard, Dean of U.S. Cookery, Dies," by Daniel P. Puzo, Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1985 (accessed October 17, 2025), https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-01-24-mn-11207-story.html; “Friends, associates fondly recall Beard,” by Steve Erickson, The Oregonian, January 24, 1985, Page D6; Beard’s obituary in Reed Magazine, by Randall S. Barton (accessed October 17, 2025), https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/in-memoriam/obituaries/_online_only/james-beard-1924.html; "The James Beard Celebration Cookbook," by the James Beard Foundation, edited by Barbara Kafka (New York: William & Morrow, Inc., 1990), pages 15, 24 and 34); "James Beard (1903-1985)," by Jim Scheppke, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/beard_james_1903_1985_/; "Author John Birdsall on James Beard's Gay Identity and Oregon Roots," by Catherine Chew Hamilton, Portland Monthly, September 30, 2020 (accessed October 2025), https://www.pdxmonthly.com/arts-and-culture/2020/09/author-john-birdsall-on-james-beard-s-gay-identity-and-oregon-roots