George Beban was an American actor, director, writer and producer. Beban began as a child performer in San Francisco, California, and became a well-known vaudevillian and stage actor in the 1890s and 1900s. He was best known for his portrayal of Italian immigrant characters, including his starring roles in the play The Sign of the Rose and the 1915 silent film classic The Italian. Though strongly associated with his Italian immigrant roles, Beban was born in San Francisco, could not speak a word of Italian, and was the son of parents from Dalmatia and Ireland.

The Italian is a 1915 American silent film feature which tells the story of an Italian gondolier who comes to the United States to make his fortune but instead winds up working as a shoeshiner and experiencing tragedy while living with his wife and child in a tenement on New York's Lower East Side. The film was produced by Thomas H. Ince, directed by Reginald Barker, and co-written by C. Gardner Sullivan and Ince. The film stars stage actor George Beban in the title role as the Italian immigrant, Pietro "Beppo" Donnetti. In 1991, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.