Maybe one of the reasons everyone liked Edgar Buchanan was because he was a real Human, growing up in Humansville, Missouri where he was born in 1903. When he was seven, his family moved to Oregon.

In 1928, Buchanan earned a DDS degree from North Pacific College School of Dentistry. That same year he married one of his classmates from dental school, Mildred Spence. Mildred was the first woman dentist in Eugene, Oregon. In 1939 the couple relocated their dental practice from Oregon to Altadena, California. While they were living there, Edgar joined the Pasadena Playhouse and began acting. His first role was in “My Son is Guilty” in 1939. Buchanan said “Being an actor is all I ever really wanted” in a 1964 interview with the Deseret News.

After that, he turned the dentist’s office over to his wife and never looked back. However, he did manage to fit some dental work into his acting career. He pulled a tooth out for his stand-in Jack Henderson. Edgar was in thirteen films with Glenn Ford. Ford told a story about one day when he needed some dental work done, and Edgar agreed to do it. They did not have anesthesia on the set, so Ford took a few swallows of whiskey to help ease the pain. Ford said for every third drink he took, Buchanan also took one.

He may have been a dentist by trade, but in film, he was most often a judge or doctor, and 25 of his acting credits cast him in those roles.

Even starting his career a bit later in life, he managed to collect 96 big-screen acting credits and another 80 on television. Some of the movies Buchanan was a part of include Move Over Darling, Cheaper by the Dozen, Shane, and Benji.

His first television role was in Hollywood Theater Time in 1950. During that decade, he accepted roles in many sitcoms.

He was a familiar face across four television series during the golden age of westerns. From 1952-54, he portrayed Red Connors on Hopalong Cassidy. He then stepped into the title role as Judge Roy Bean from 1955-56. Between 1957 and 1960, he appeared in six episodes of Tales of Wells Fargo as Doc Dawson. Rounding out the decade, he took on the role of Doc Burrage in five episodes of The Rifleman between 1959 and 1961.

Buchanan made a pilot to star in Luke and the Tenderfoot. Two episodes were made about a fast-talking con man who befriends a naïve young man as they travel west. The network chose not to buy the pilot; however, it did show the episode on television later. The other episode has never been aired on television, but they both are available to watch on YouTube.

The sixties was his busiest decade. He showed up on many westerns and sitcoms. He also played Grandpa on National Velvet; this show was about a young girl who lives on a dairy farm with her family and a former jockey.

Of course, this was also the decade he had his most famous role, Joe Carson on Petticoat Junction (222 episodes), Green Acres (16 episodes), and The Beverly Hillbillies (3 episodes). Joe Carson was a role far removed from a judge or a doctor. He was a lazy guy who spent a lot of time trying to think up get-rich-quick schemes. Despite that, he’s such a likeable guy, we are always rooting for him.

A fun fact is that Edgar’s son Buck appeared in two of the Petticoat episodes with his dad.

In 1963, Buchanan talked with The Daily Herald about his role on Petticoat Junction. He said that “the small community is the heritage of every American. We all evolved from small towns. Humansville had a population of about 600—give or take a couple hundred.” He went on to say, “For me, especially, Petticoat Junction is home. On the show, I work with four pretty gals. And in real life, I had four sisters always peckin’ at me.”

Before passing away at the end of the seventies, Buchanan appeared in four additional series. He also took on one more regular cast role as JJ Jackson in 24 episodes of Cade’s County in 1971-72.

Buchanan died from a stroke complicated by pneumonia in 1979.

In a February 20, 1972, interview, Buchanan told the Boston Globe that the key to his acting success was that “I’ve always played myself, whether doing a dramatic part or a comedy role.” Many of his co-stars said Edgar always stole the scenes they were in; his costars in Move Over Darling mentioned that in several interviews.

In that 1964 interview with the Deseret News, he was asked how his career lasted so long, and he said that he knew he was not a leading man type but a character actor. However, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ll just have to confess that my wife says I’m the handsomest man to ever walk on a stage and anyone who calls my wife a liar has got to fight me.”

I’m glad Buchanan found the perfect job. He was seen by many more people on television than he would have been in his dentist’s office. And he was always a character I’m happy to say.