He was born in New York City, New York where his father, Noah Beery, Sr., was working as a stage actor. The family moved to California in 1915 when his father began acting in motion pictures. After attending school in Los Angeles, they moved to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, a style of living he would maintain for the rest of his life.

At the age of seven, he appeared with his father in The Mark of Zorro and like his father, who immediately began billing himself as "Noah Beery, Sr.," he went on to become a respected character actor. His uncle, Oscar-winning screen phenomenon Wallace Beery, became the world's highest-paid actor by 1932, and while neither Noah nor his father ever approached that level, both had extremely long and memorable film careers. All three acting Beerys physically resembled each other rather closely, but Noah, Jr. lacked a thrillingly powerful voice like his father's and uncle's (which is ironic, since both older Beerys made major careers as supporting actors in silent movies).

Noah Beery, Jr. appeared in dozens of films, including Red River, but is best known for his role as "Rocky," the father of James Garner's character James Rockford on the popular and intelligently written television series The Rockford Files (1974-1980).

Noah Beery, Jr. died in 1994 in Tehachapi, California of a cerebral thrombosis and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California with his father and uncle.