Did The Tin Man Die From The Paint

Actor Buddy Ebsen Dies

July vii, 2003 / 8:36 AM / CBS/AP

Buddy Ebsen, the loose-limbed dancer turned Hollywood actor who achieved distinction and riches in the television series "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Barnaby Jones," has died, a hospital official said Monday. He was 95.

Ebsen died Lord's day morning at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, said Pam Promise, an administrative nursing supervisor. He had been admitted to the hospital, almost his habitation in Palos Verdes Estates, last month for treatment of an undisclosed illness.

"He was so versatile," said long-time entertainment reporter Tom Hatten of CBS radio station KNX Los Angeles. "His work on-screen will always be enjoyed for dissimilar reasons. He could practice annihilation, he really could."

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

Except for an allergy to the aluminum-dust makeup, he would have been ane of the Yellow Brick Road quartet in the classic "The Wizard of Oz." After ten days of filming, Ebsen, playing the Tin can Man, fell ill because of the aluminum makeup on his skin and had to be hospitalized. He was replaced by Jack Haley.

"I recollect Buddy Ebsen was bitter all his life that he didn't get to be in this smashing moving-picture show classic," Washington Post television receiver critic Tom Shales told CBS Radio News.

Television brought Ebsen'due south amiable personality to the domicile screen, kickoff as Fess Parker'due south sidekick in "Davy Crockett."

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

"Equally I call back, the but skilful find was in the Sat Review," Ebsen once said. "The critic said the show possessed 'social comment combined with a high Nielsen, an almost incommunicable achievement in these days.' I kinda liked that."

The show was withal earning proficient ratings when it was canceled by CBS because advertisers shunned a serial that attracted primarily a rural audition.

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. Only Ebsen'south folksy manner and a warm relationship with his daughter-in-police, played by Lee Meriwether, fabricated the series a success.

"With such a glut of private-heart shows, I didn't see how some other one could succeed," Ebsen once said. "I really thought the network was making a error." Merely the series clicked and lasted until 1980.

"I'yard the luckiest actor live," Ebsen said in 1978. "There'south not anyone I'd merchandise jobs with right now."

"He probably wouldn't proceed anyone'due south list of the major talents of the 20th century, but he had two striking idiot box shows and neither would have been a hit without him, I don't think," said Shales.

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 every bit "Flying Colors" and "Ziegfeld Follies."

A screen test led to an MGM contract for the trip the light fantastic squad, and they were a hitting in "Broadway Tune of 1936."

Ebsen was earning $2,000 a calendar week at MGM in 1938, when studio dominate Louis B. Mayer summoned him and appear: "Ebsen, in order to give you the parts you deserve, we must ain you lot."

The dancer recalled that he replied: "I'll tell you what kind of a fool I am, Mr. Mayer, I can't exist owned." He quit his contract, returning to touring every bit 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 Two.

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 just he hired Ebsen as Crockett'southward partner. When the Crockett episodes were shown on the "Disneyland" series in 1954-55, both Parker and Ebsen became heroes.

Ebsen'south subsequently films included "Attack," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The Interns," "Post Society Helpmate," "The Ane and Merely Genuine Original Family Ring."

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

He was born Christian Rudolph Ebsen in Belleville, Sick., on Apr 2, 1908. His father owned a dancing school, where the nicknamed Buddy learned the fundamentals. The family moved to Orlando, Fla., when the boy was x, and he began pre-medical studies at the Academy of Florida and Rollins College. Only family financial issues forced him to go out school and, at 20, he decided to attempt 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'south cousin," he recalled. "I got a job in a route visitor, only the producer said, 'That boy one pes taller than the balance of 'em — out!'"

Over the years, the histrion besides found fourth dimension to write musical shows, a play, fiction and his autobiography.