[Deathwatch] Buddy Ebsen, actor, 95

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Buddy Ebsen dead at 95
Monday, July 7, 2003 Posted: 8:53 AM EDT (1253 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/07/obit.ebsen.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Buddy Ebsen, the loose-limbed Broadway
dancer who achieved stardom and riches in the television series "The
Beverly Hillbillies" and "Barnaby Jones," has died, a hospital official
said Monday. He was 95. 

Ebsen died Sunday morning at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in
Torrance, said Pam Hope, an administrative nursing supervisor. He had
been admitted to the hospital, near his home in Palos Verdes Estates,
last month for treatment of an undisclosed illness. 

Ebsen and his sister Vilma danced through Broadway shows and MGM
musicals of the 1930s. When she retired, Ebsen continued on his own,
dancing with Shirley Temple and turning dramatic actor. 

Except for an allergy to aluminum paint, he would have been one of the
Yellow Brick Road quartet in the classic "The Wizard of Oz." After 10
days of filming, Ebsen, playing the Tin Man, fell ill because of the
aluminum makeup on his skin and was replaced by Jack Haley. 

Television brought Ebsen's amiable personality to the home screen,
first as Fess Parker's sidekick in "Davy Crockett." 

As Jed Clampett, the easygoing head of a newly rich Ozark family
plunked down in snooty Beverly Hills, Ebsen became a national favorite.
While scorned by most critics, "The Beverly Hillbillies" attracted as
many as 60 million viewers on CBS between 1962 and 1971. 

"As I recall, the only good notice was in the Saturday Review," Ebsen
once said. "The critic said the show possessed 'social comment combined
with a high Nielsen, an almost impossible achievement in these days.' I
kinda liked that." 

The show was still earning good ratings when it was canceled by CBS
because advertisers shunned a series that attracted primarily a rural
audience. 

'The luckiest actor alive'
Ebsen returned to series TV in 1973 as "Barnaby Jones," a private
investigator forced out of retirement to solve the murder of his son
Hal, who had taken over the business. 

"Barnaby Jones" also drew critical blasts. But Ebsen's folksy manner
and a warm relationship with his daughter-in-law, played by Lee
Meriwether, made the series a success. 

"With such a glut of private-eye shows, I didn't see how another one
could succeed," Ebsen once said. "I really thought the network was
making a mistake." But the series clicked and lasted until 1980. 

"I'm the luckiest actor alive," Ebsen said in 1978. "There's not anyone
I'd trade jobs with right now." 

Ebsen, who was 6 feet 3, jerked sodas until he landed a chorus job in
the 1928 "Whoopee," starring Eddie Cantor. The dancer sent for his
sister Vilma and they formed a dancing team that played vaudeville,
supper clubs and shows such as "Flying Colors" and "Ziegfeld Follies." 


A screen test led to an MGM contract for the dance team, and they were
a hit in "Broadway Melody of 1936." Buddy's style was far removed from
that of the reigning dance king of films, Fred Astaire. The angular
Ebsen moved with a smooth, sliding shuffle, his arms gyrating like a
wind-blown scarecrow. He made a charming partner with the tiny Shirley
Temple in "Captain January." 

His other films of the '30s included "Banjo on My Knee," "Four Girls in
White," "Girl of the Golden West" (Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy) and
"My Lucky Star" (Sonja Henie). His first dramatic role was in "Yellow
Jack" with Robert Montgomery. 

'I can't be owned'
Ebsen was earning $2,000 a week at MGM in 1938, when studio boss Louis
B. Mayer summoned him and announced: "Ebsen, in order to give you the
parts you deserve, we must own you." 

The dancer recalled that he replied: "I'll tell you what kind of a fool
I am, Mr. Mayer, I can't be owned." He quit his contract, returning to
touring as a dancer and playing Chicago for more than a year in a
farce, "Good Night, Ladies." He served three years in the Coast Guard
during World War II. 

Ebsen toured in "Show Boat," then returned to Hollywood. Producers
asked his agent: "Why hasn't he been working in pictures?" His luck
began to change when director Norman Foster recommended him to Walt
Disney to play Davy Crockett. 

Disney had already chosen a young Texan, Fess Parker, for the role but
he hired Ebsen as Crockett's partner. When the Crockett episodes were
shown on the "Disneyland" series in 1954-55, both Parker and Ebsen
became heroes. Millions of children began sporting coonskin hats and
singing "The Ballad of Davy Crockett." "Davy Crockett" was also
released to theaters. 

Ebsen's later films included "Attack," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The
Interns," "Mail Order Bride," "The One and Only Genuine Original Family
Band." 

In 1993, he made a cameo appearance as Barnaby Jones in the film
version of "The Beverly Hillbillies." 

He was born Christian Rudolph Ebsen in Belleville, Illinois, on April
2, 1908. His father owned a dancing school, where the boy, nicknamed
Buddy, learned the fundamentals. The family moved to Orlando, Florida,
when the boy was 10, and he began pre-medical studies at the University
of Florida and Rollins College. But family financial problems forced
him to leave school and, at 20, he decided to try his luck as a dancer
in New York. 

"I arrived in New York with $26.25 in my pocket and a letter of
introduction to a friend of a friend's cousin," he recalled. "I got a
job in a road company, but the producer said, 'That boy one foot taller
than the rest of 'em -- out!' " 

Over the years, the actor also found time to write musical shows, "Turn
to the Right" and "Champagne Dada," and a play, "The Champagne
General." A lifelong sailor, he piloted his "Polynesian Concept" to
victory in a Los Angeles-Honolulu race in 1968 and manufactured
ocean-going catamarans. 

In 2001, Ebsen started a new, unexpected career: fiction writing. His
novel "Kelly's Quest," released by an e-book publisher based in
Indiana, became a best seller. He also penned an autobiography, "The
Other Side of Oz." 

Ebsen was first married to Ruth Cambridge, Walter Winchell's "Girl
Friday," and they had two daughters. The marriage ended in divorce, and
he met and married his second wife, Nancy, while both were in the Coast
Guard. They had four daughters and a son.