The Blog of Death

Eddie Albert

Edward Albert Heimberger, a veteran actor of stage and screen who achieved his greatest fame on the 1960s TV show "Green Acres," died on May 26 of pneumonia. He was 99.

Born in Rock Island, Ill., and raised in Minneapolis, Edward attended the University of Minnesota for two years before launching his performing career as a singer and master of ceremonies in a magic show. After hearing his last name mispronounced over and over again, he adopted the stage name Eddie Albert.

In the 1930s, Albert moved to New York with dreams of becoming a working actor. He made his Broadway debut in "O Evening Star" before landing the lead role in the 1936 stage production of "Brother Rat." An executive from Warner Bros. caught the show and offered Albert a studio contract. He signed a seven-year deal, moved to Hollywood and appeared in the film adaptation of "Brother Rat" and its sequel.

An avid sailor, Albert would often take long trips in a ketch down the California coast. On one of these excursions, he encountered Japanese "fishermen" making hydrographic surveys near Baja California. When Albert reported his findings to Army intelligence, the military agreed to use him as a spy. Albert then spent several years working as a clown and trapeze artist in a small, Mexican circus while he gathered intelligence about Nazi activities in the region. During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and earned a Bronze Star for rescuing nearly 70 wounded soldiers that had been abandoned under heavy fire in the "Bloody Battle of Tarawa."

After the war, Albert rehabilitated his film career by tackling minor roles in small movies and starting Eddie Albert Productions, a company that made 16mm industrial and educational films. He soon found steady work playing wisecracking sidekicks, cowardly villains and sympathetic father figures in more than 100 motion pictures, including "Smash-up," "Attack," "Carrie," "Oklahoma!" "The Sun Also Rises," "The Longest Yard" and "Escape to Witch Mountain." Albert twice received Academy Award nominations for best supporting actor in "Roman Holiday" and "The Heartbreak Kid."

Playing a straight man on television, however, turned Albert into a star. For six seasons, he portrayed Oliver Wendell Douglas, a New York lawyer who settles on a farm with his glamorous wife (Eva Gabor) in the CBS comedy "Green Acres." Albert often joked that he was "the only actor to have worked with one of the Gabor sisters and not marry one." He was, in fact, married to Mexican actress/singer Margo (née Maria Margarita Guadelupe Teresa Estella Bolado Castilla y O'Donnell) for 40 years, until her death in 1985. Albert later costarred with Robert Wagner in the TV show "Switch," became a semi-regular on the soap operas "Falcon Crest" and "General Hospital," and provided the voice of Vulture/Adrian Toomes in the cartoon "Spider-Man."

Aside from his film work, Albert traveled the world as a representative of UNICEF and crusaded for various environmental issues. In the 1970s, he and his wife formed Plaza de la Raza, a non-profit community arts center in Los Angeles. Albert also tended his own vegetable and flower garden, and was one of the first people to call for a ban on DDT.

• Listen to a Tribute From NPR

Download the "Green Acres" Theme Song, Sung by Albert

Posted on June 1, 2005 9:10 PM