- Dabbs Greer
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Dabbs Greer 
Greer in 1954Born Robert William Greer
April 2, 1917
Fairview, Missouri, U.S.Died April 28, 2007 (aged 90)
Pasadena, California, U.S.Years active 1949–2003 Robert William "Dabbs" Greer (April 2, 1917 – April 28, 2007)[1] was an American actor who performed many diverse supporting roles in film and television for some fifty years. His distinctive, southern-accented voice fitted well in shows featuring rustic characters, such as westerns. However, he is probably best remembered as Reverend Alden in Little House on the Prairie.
Contents
Biography
Personal life
Greer was born in Fairview, Missouri, the son of Bernice Irene (née Dabbs), a speech teacher, and Randall Alexander Greer, a druggist.[2] Greer moved to Anderson as an infant with his family. He was 8 when he began acting in children's theater productions. He attended Drury University, where he was a member of Theta Kappa Nu. He moved to Pasadena in 1943. Greer died at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California after a battle with renal failure and heart disease.[3] Greer never married and had no survivors.
Career
Dabbs Greer in the 1999 movie The Green Mile
He made his film debut as an extra in the 1938 movie "Jesse James," which was filmed mainly in Pineville. "They were paying $5 a day – a day! – to local people for being extras. That was really good money in those days, more money than we had seen in a long time," he told the Neosho Daily News in 2002. Greer was recognizable to fans of The Adventures of Superman, as he appeared in three separate episodes on that show, including the series' inaugural entry, Superman on Earth (1952) where he played the first person to ever be saved by Superman. He was the major guest star, as a man framed for capital murder in Five Minutes to Doom (1954 – see photo on right), and as an eccentric millionaire in The Superman Silver Mine (1958). He appeared in many television programs, including the role of the marshal in the two-part "King of the Dakotas" (1955) and as Ray in "Paper Gunman" of the NBC western anthology series, Frontier. In 1957, he appeared in the episode "Revenge" of the syndication crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. Greer guest starred in three episodes as Mr. Blandish in the syndicated romantic comedy series How to Marry a Millionaire (1957–1959), with Barbara Eden and Merry Anders. He also guest starred about this time on Steve McQueen's Wanted: Dead or Alive.
Greer starred as Ed Grimes on the 1958 episode "312 Vertical" of Rod Cameron's syndicated series State Trooper. He appeared in the 1957 episode "Ambush at Gila Gulch" of ABC's Tombstone Territory, the 1957 episode "Rebel Christmas" of the Tod Andrews syndicated series Gray Ghost, a 1959 episode, "Peligroso" of NBC's western series The Restless Gun, a 1959 episode of the syndicated Man Without a Gun, and a 1959 episode of the Keenan Wynn and Bob Mathias NBC adventure series The Troubleshooters, the 1960 episode "The Proud Man" in the role of Willie Medford on the syndicated western series Two Faces West, the 1960 episode "Dark Fear" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, in the television show The Twilight Zone in 1962 titled "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby", and a 1963 segment of Jack Palance's ABC circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth. In 1967, Greer appeared in the series finale entitled "Elizabeth's Odyssey" of Barry Sullivan's NBC western series The Road West.
The 1960s brought Greer several recurring roles in popular TV series, as track coach Ossie Weiss in Hank, Sheriff Norris "Norrie" Coolidge in The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, and storekeeper Wilbur Jonas in Gunsmoke.
Greer had a prominent continuing role in the NBC series Little House on the Prairie as Reverend Robert Alden from 1974 to 1983. Often cast as a minister, he performed the marriages of Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and of Mike and Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, and he tended to the spiritual needs of the townfolk in fictional Rome, Wisconsin, as Reverend Henry Novotny in Picket Fences. He also had a guest appearence on an episode of Charles in Charge as Buzz Powell.
In the 1958 film I Want to Live! he played the San Quentin captain who finished strapping down Barbara Graham in the gas chamber prior to her execution and was the last person to speak to her. He had a similar role in the 1999 film The Green Mile, in which he played the elderly version of Tom Hanks' Death Row officer Paul Edgecomb.
In the May 9, 1991, episode of L.A. Law called "On the Toad Again", he played a character who was addicted to a "high" produced by licking the skin secretions of psychoactive toads.
Greer had a cameo in 'Con Air' (1997) when he played the Old Man under Truck with John Cusack.
Most of his work was in supporting roles, but Greer told the Albany, N.Y., Times Union in 2000: "Every character actor, in their own little sphere, is the lead."
References
- ^ Brad Ferguson View profile More options (2007-04-30). "Dabbs Greer, 1917–2007 – alt.obituaries | Google Groups". Groups.google.com. http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/5a399503a09508e0?hl=en&. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- ^ "Dabbs Greer Biography (1917–)". Filmreference.com. 1917-04-02. http://www.filmreference.com/film/88/Dabbs-Greer.html. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- ^ "Character actor Dabbs Greer dies at 90". Usatoday.Com. 2007-05-01. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2007-05-01-3792274435_x.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
External links
Categories:- 1917 births
- 2007 deaths
- People from Fairview, Missouri
- American film actors
- American television actors
- Cardiovascular disease deaths in California
- Deaths from renal failure
- People from the Greater Los Angeles Area
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