Eddie Albert Dead at 99
From this article in Playbill:
Character actor Eddie Albert died May 26 at his home near Pacific Palisades, California, at the age of 99, leaving behind him decades' worth of performances on stage and in film and television.
The likably gruff, square-jawed Mr. Albert was perhaps best known for gentleman farmer Oliver Wendell Douglas he created in the 1960s sitcom "Green Acres," but his accomplishments in the theatre and in movies were equally impressive.
He made his Broadway debut in 1936 in the short-lived comedy O Evening Star. Later that same year, Garson Kanin cast him in a starring role in Brother Rat, which was produced by George Abbott.
Two more big roles follows: Room Service, a comedy produced and directed by Abbott, and The Boys From Syracuse, the classical musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, in which he played Antipholus of Syracuse.
Among Eddie Albert's most memorable early film roles were Ali Hakim in Oklahoma!, a recovering alcoholic in Smash Up and a cowardly soldier in Attack. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Roman Holiday, the film that introduced Audrey Hepburn to the world. In it he played reporter Gregory Peck's sidekick, the womanizing beatnik photographer Irving Radovich.
That comic characterization would have been almost unrecognizable to audiences in the late '60s and '70s who were used to Mr. Albert's portrayals of autocratic, easily vexed stuffed shifts. In this mode, he played Cybill Shepherd's frosty father in 1972's The Heartbreak Kid (another Academy Award nomination) and Warren Hazen, the corrupt prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. And then there was the stuffed shirt of stuffed shirts, lawyer Holmes in "Green Acres," who did farm work in shirtsleeves and business vest, battled daily with the nonsense of the local yokels, and turned beet red at his wife Eva Gabor's sweet-natured dizziness.
The well-known theme song for the popular sitcom ("Green acres in the place for me/Farm living is the life for me") was sung by Mr. Albert, who by then had had more than his share of experience on the musical stage.
He will be missed.
Technorati tags: Broadway Music Movie Musicals Musicals Blog Blogs Theater Theatre Entertainment
