In Remembrance: Eddie Albert
Eddie Albert, the two-time Academy Award nominated actor who found
his biggest fame as the beleaguered big city lawyer who moves to the
country for peace and quiet on the 1960s television comedy Green
Acres, has passed away on May 26, 2005 in Pacific Palisades,
California. He was 99.
Born on April 22, 1906 in Rock Island, Illinois, Albert and has family moved to Minneapolis a year later. He studied drama at the University of Minnesota, paying his way by washing dishes and working nights as a manager at a movie theater. He dropped out of college his junior year to join a singing trio which performed locally, as well as in Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati and New York City. After the group split up, Albert stayed in Manhattan; first singing on radio and then acting in various summer stock productions.
In 1935 Albert landed his first role in the play O Evening Star. Although the show closed in less than a week, he was able to land a role in the 1936 comedy hit about three cadets at the Virginia Military Academy, Brother Rat. He followed his success with roles in the comedy Room Service (1927) and the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys From Syracuse (1938).
Albert made his film debut reprising his Broadway role for the silver screen adaptation of Brother Rat in 1938 at Warner Brothers Studios. He stayed at Warners for three years, appearing in lead or supporting roles in such films as the drama Four Wives (1939) and its sequel Four Mothers (1941), comedies like An Angel From Texas (1940) and The Great Mr. Nobody (1941) and the film noir Out Of The Fog (1941).
Although Albert joined the Navy in June 1942, he had a handful of films completed at RKO Universal and Paramount Studios that were released through the rest of the year into 1943. Returning from his tour of duty in the South Pacific after the end of World War II, Albert found himself having to reestablish himself as an actor, appearing in such B-films as Rendezvous With Annie (1946), Time Out Of Mind (1947) and The Fuller Brush Girl (1950). He also drew on his wartime experience in helping to produce Naval training film and established Eddie Albert Productions in 1946 to produce industrial and educational films.
After a short-lived television comedy series, Leave It To Larry, Albert landed the role of the news photographer friend of Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday (1953), earning the actor his first of two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. The film also opened the way for better roles in such films as Oklahoma! (1955), Teahouse Of The August Moon (1956), The Sun Also Rises (1957) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). Albert’s second Academy Award nomination came two decades later when he played the frustrated father of Cybil Shepard in the Neil Simon- Elaine May comedy The Goodbye Kid (1972).
Although initially reluctant to return to television, Albert agreed to head up the cast of Green Acres in 1965, playing the role of Oliver Douglas, a lawyer who decides to leave the rush of city life for the calm of a country farm. The show was a spin-off of the popular comedy series Petticoat Junction and was set in Junction’s fictional town of Hooterville, with supporting characters appearing on both shows. Green Acres ran until 1971.
Albert was not averse to playing roles that went against his good-guy type, most notably following his genial Green Acres role with that of the sadistic prison warden in The Longest Yard (1974). He followed that role with the part of a cynical widower who helps the two psychic children in Disney’s Escape To Witch Mountain (1975).
In the 1960s and 70s, Albert became more involved with environmental issues, using his star profile to discuss these issues during appearances on television programs such as Tonight and Today and at high schools and universities. He also found time to appear in such films as 7 Women (1966), McQ (1974), Hustle (1975), The Concorde: Airport `79 (1979), The Act (1982), Dreamscape (1984) and Head Office (1985). His final film was narrating the 1994 documentary Death Valley Memories.