It’s always sad to hear abut the passing of someone in show business who you liked, not just because they seemed to become a “friend” to you due to their performances — but because you admired the quality of their work.
It’s ironic that Eddie Albert, who died of pneumonia Thursday at his home in the Pacific Palisades area, in the presence of caregivers including his son Edward, who was holding his hand at the time, would be known to early 21st century audiences as the star of a hit 60s TV comedy called Green Acres.
Green Acres is shown on cable television and from past news reports it has always performed well in re-runs. The reason: its premise of a wealthy lawyer living his dream of being out in the boondocks with his glamorous wife (Eva Gabor in her best role) who was dragged unwillingly out there with him, still holds up. So does the standard-late-20th-century comedy writing, written by people who had backgrounds in radio and sitcoms. Green Acres, in case you don’t know or forgot, was a creation of the team that made the smash 60s hit The Beverly Hillbillies.
Edwards was a solid actor in films, often playing the sidekick. AP gives this quick sum up of his early career:
His break in show business came during the ’30s in the Broadway hit “Brother Rat,” a comedy about life at Virginia Military Institute. Warner Bros. signed him to a contract and cast him in the 1938 film.
According to Hollywood gossip, he was caught in a dalliance with the wife of Jack L. Warner and the studio boss removed him from a film and allowed him to languish under contract.
The actor left Hollywood and appeared as a clown and trapeze artist in a one-ring Mexican circus. He escaped his studio contract by joining the Navy in World War II and served in combat in the South Pacific. He received a Bronze Star for his heroic rescue of wounded Marines at Tarawa, his son said.
Albert managed to rehabilitate his film career after the war, beginning with “Smash-up” with Susan Hayward in 1947.
Among his other films: “Carrie,” “Oklahoma!” “The Teahouse of the August Moon,” “The Sun Also Rises,” “The Roots of Heaven,” “The Longest Day,” “Miracle of the White Stallions,” “The Longest Yard” and “Escape to Witch Mountain.”
But it’s on Green Acres, still being shown and still popular on cable where new generations have gotten to know him:
On “Green Acres,” Albert played Oliver Douglas, a New York lawyer who settles in a rural town with his glamorous wife, played by Eva Gabor, and finds himself perplexed by the antics of a host of eccentrics, including a pig named Arnold Ziffel.“Some people think that because of the bucolic background `Green Acres’ is corny,” Albert told an interviewer in 1970. “But we get away with some of the most incredible lines on television.”
Indeed, it was a WELL-WRITTEN show. You can’t do a good program without decent writing. Look at many of the Seinfeld alumni; their personas were not enough.
But it was more than that. On Green Acres (which you can buy on DVD), Edwards displays an uncanny and endearing flair for comedy, so expertly delivered with his timing, characterization and pizazz that it should stand as a work for study for young aspiring comic actors. He was a solid actor not doing his show as parody, not delivering any lines with irony, not showing one ounce of self-consciousness or that attitude some actors and comedians have where you can see that they really think they themselves are wonderful. He simply and convincingly portrayed in a comedy a man puzzled by finding himself in the middle of a nutty universe. And every line and joke written received maximum performance. THAT is why the show holds up so well.
Edwards also made himself part of another part of television culture by his musical-comedy-style singing of the program’s opening number. And that, once again, underlines one of television culture’s supreme ironies:
Performers can be hailed in their lifetimes as being the greatest. They can be multi-talented. But in some cases death IS finality. They vanish from memory. Or their work fades — even in an era when almost anything that find a market, be repackaged and sold is. Yet, a lucky handfull’s work keeps being display — due to their talents, an almost inexplicable comfort level, or just luck. If that happens, new generations discovering them know them for ONE role. Just consider the amazingly talented Jackie Gleason who portrayed huge cast of characters on his show. People remember one: bus driver Ralph Kramden.
Actual shows than don’t vanish may live on due to performance, writing, overall feel and marketing. And there are ironies: never did The Three Stooges dream in the 40s that 60 years later new generations would be more familiar with them than the Marx Brothers — and that their shorts would continue to be shown (their heirs have also skillfully kept their legacy alive).
No one in the 60s would have predicted Green Acres would still be aired 40 years later. Still, when it was on the air Green Acres always got solid ratings. When it was taken off the air it wasn’t due to ratings. It was simply one of several programs yanked off CBS, which wanted to appeal to younger, more urban demographics and basically took a broom and swept the old guard’s shows away.
Albert kept acting…and kept also busy with another priority of his:”He was a tireless conservationist, crusading for endangered species, healthful food, cleanup of Santa Monica Bay pollution and other causes.”
One report says he died at age 99. A class act. A topflight comic actor. Someone who left a wealth of material for those who want to be actors and comic actors to study…and emulate..if they want to see someone who made comedy look easy. Good comedy seldom is.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.