This month we are looking at some of our favorite classic television actors. If you are a big fan of Oklahoma or Green Acres, you will be well acquainted with our star today, Eddie Albert. Let’s learn a bit more about his life and career.
Eddie was born Edward Albert Heimberger in 1906 in Illinois. When he was one, his family moved to Minneapolis. When he was six, he became a paper boy. He and his schoolmate, Harriet Lake, were in the drama club. Harriet would later change her name to Ann Sothern. After graduating in 1926, Albert enrolled at the University of Minnesota to major in business.
He began his career in earnest, but the stock market crash derailed his job search. He worked a variety of jobs including singer, trapeze artist, and insurance salesman.
In 1933 he moved to New York City and cohosted a radio show called “The Honeymooners-Grace and Eddie Show,” with costar Grace Bradt. He was on the show three years and then Warner Brothers offered him a contract.
Albert also had an early career on Broadway with lead roles in “Room Service” and “The Boys From Syracuse.” He also began working on television. In 1936, NBC hosted a play of his “The Love Nest” on their experimental television station W2XBS, now WNBC.
His first movie role occurred in 1938 in Brother Rat. He would make 25 additional films during the next decade and then another 50 big-screen movies before his career ended, with his last one being the Narrator in Death Valley Days in 1995.
During his odd-job era, Albert had toured Mexico as a clown and trapeze artist with the Escalante Brother Circus while working for the US Army intelligence, photographing German boats in Mexican harbors. In 1942, he enlisted in the US Coast Guard. In 1943, he resigned in order to accept an offer as a lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve. He rescued 47 marines under heavy enemy fire in 1943 and was awarded a Bronze Star.
After returning from the War, Albert married Mexican actress, Margo. Their son also became an actor and their daughter took on the role of Eddie’s business manager. His son had more than 130 credits, the first being in 1963. You probably saw him on many of your favorite shows. Unfortunately, he passed away from lung cancer only a year after his father died.
During the late forties to the early sixties, Albert returned to Broadway for roles in “Miss Liberty,” “The Seven-Year Itch,” and “The Music Man.”
Albert had a long and active television career. During the fifty years that he was working in the industry, he appeared in almost 100 different shows. His first appearance was in the Ford Theater Hour in 1948.
Throughout the fifties, Eddie showed up in many of the early drama series on television. The sixties found him, along with most other actors of that decade, showing up on a variety of westerns, including Laramie, Tales of West Fargo, The Virginian, and Wagon Train. He was offered roles in several dramas as well, including Dr. Kildare, The Outer Limits, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
In 1965 he received the starring role of Oliver Douglas in Green Acres. For six seasons, he extolled the virtues of farming over the big city rat race. While Oliver had a harder time fitting into Hooterville life, his elegant wife Lisa was accepted immediately. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know I love this show. I am more impressed with it now, fifty years later. There is so much sophisticated humor and wit in the show and I love getting to know the quirky characters who live in the Hooterville community. As Oliver Douglas, Albert was also on The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. The show was purged with the other rural comedies, even though the ratings were still quite high.
The seventies and eighties kept Albert busy on television and in films. He appeared on many shows including Columbo, McCloud, Here’s Lucy, Simon & Simon, Hotel, Murder She Wrote, and thirtysomething.
He opted to star in one more television series in Switch from 1975-78. He starred as ex-cop Frank McBride who started a detective agency with ex-con Pete Ryan (Robert Wagner).
Much of Eddie’s life was spent as an activist for social and environmental causes. He participated in the first Earth Day. He founded the Eddie Albert World Trees Foundation and was national chairman for the Boys Scouts of America’s conservation program. From 1985-1993, he was the spokesperson for the National Arbor Day Foundation. He was a trustee of the National Recreation and Park Association and became a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s advisory board.
In addition, he was involved with Meals for Millions and was a consultant for the World Hunger Conference. Meals for Millions was a project that created nutritional meals for three cents each! They were sent to 129 different countries and added up to more than 6.5 million pounds of food. He and Albert Schweitzer participated in a documentary about malnutrition in Africa, and he often campaigned against DDT. He was also a director for the U.S. Council on Refugees and promoted organic gardening. Albert was also the founder of City Children’s Farms, a program to get inner-city kids involved in gardening.
I’m not sure when he had any other time for leisure and recreation, but he loved jogging, swimming, golfing, traveling, sculpting, beekeeping, sailing, reading, making wine, gardening, and playing guitar.
He 1995, Albert was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His son temporarily retired from acting to care for his father. In 2005, Eddie passed away from pneumonia.
When Albert passed away, we lost much more than an actor, although we did lose a great actor. I was so impressed with how much he did for the economy. He told a great story about his former costar Eva Gabor. She loved her fashion. They were great friends and like any couple, married or not, they had their differences. She never understood his passion for wildlife conservation. She asked him, “Every time you hear about a sick fish, you make a speech, vy?” And he patiently explained that we needed to preserve nature and save wild animals. A few days later she showed up in a gown made of feathers. He told her she should not be wearing it, and she said it was so chic. Albert told her that she was a role model, and when other women saw her gown, they would want one and many birds would die just to supply the feathers. Lisa just laughed and seriously said, “But Eddie, feathers don’t come from birds.” So he asked her where they did come from and she said, “Dahlink, Pillows! Feathers come from pillows.” In addition to being a great actor and an amazing activist, he was also a good and patient friend.
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