Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. net worth is $2 Million. Also know about Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Wiki Biography

Christian Rudolph Ebsen Jr. was born on the 2nd April 1908, in Belleville, Illinois USA, of Danish and Latvian descent. He was an actor, dancer and entertainer, probably best known for the roles of Jed Clampett in the popular television series “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1962–1971) and the private detective in the series “Barnaby Jones” (1973–1980). Ebsen had been active in the entertainment industry from 1928 to 2001. He passed away in July 2003.

How rich was the actor? It was estimated by authoritative sources that the overall size of Buddy Ebsen’s net worth was as much as $2 million.

To begin with, he was the son of Christian Rudolf Ebsen, Sr. and Frances. He matriculated from high school in 1926, then from 1926 to 1927 he studied at the University of Florida, and then at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1928. Financial problems in the family forced him to leave the university at the age of 20, and Ebsen moved to New York with only $26.75 in his pocket to try his luck as a dancer there. With his sister Vilma, they performed under the pseudonym The Baby Astaire and had some small roles on Broadway.

In 1936, the Ebsens family received a two-year contract at MGM; they moved to Hollywood and had their first film appearance in the film “Broadway Melody” (1936). Then Vilma Ebsen retired from show business, but Buddy got more roles in “Captain January” (1936), “Born to Dance” (1936) and “Banjo on My Knee” (1936). His flamboyant dance style earned him more roles, and in 1939 he landed the role of the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz”. His net worth was rising steadily.

During World War 2, Buddy served in the US Coast Guard, being honorably discharged in 1946. Afterwards, he created roles in the films including “Under Mexicali Stars” (1950), “Rodeo King and the Senorita” (1951), “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” (1954) and others. He also landed the role in television series “Davy Crockett” (1954-1955). He also starred as the significantly older husband of Audrey Hepburn in the comedy “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1960).

Probably the biggest impact on Ebsen’s career was the comedy series “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1962–1971) aired on CBS. The series had many fans and possessed high audience ratings, yet it was judged only moderately by critics. From 1973 to 1980 Ebsen continued his career as the title role of the television detective Barnaby Jones on CBS. He was also a speaker in the documentary series “Album Disney Family”.

Even after retirement, he landed many guest roles in various series. Ebsen was also active as a writer, releasing several novels and an autobiography, and he was also heard in several recordings as a singer and spokesman. Ebsen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The Walt Disney Company appointed him as a Disney Legend in 1993.

Finally, in the personal life of the actor, he had been married three times. His first wife with whom he had two daughters was Ruth Cambridge(1936-42). The second wife with whom he had four daughters and a son was Lieutenant Nancy Wolcott(1945-85), and his third wife was Dorothy Knott(1985-2003). Buddy Ebsen died from respiratory failure at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California, being 95 years old.

IMDB Wikipedia ‘The Twilight Zone’ “Barnaby Jones” (1973–1980) “Bus Stop” (1961-1962) “Born to Dance” “Broadway Melody of 1936” “Broadway Melody of 1938” “Burke’s Law” (1994) “Burke’s Law” (1994) Hollywood Walk of Fame “Bus Stop” (1961-1962) “Captain January” (1936) “Disney Family Album” “Flying Colors” “Sing Your Worries Away” (1942) “The Waiting Room” “They Met in Argentina” (1941) “Whoopee” “Ziegfeld Follies of 1934” $2 million 1908-04-02 2003-07-06 Actor Author Barnaby Jones Belleville Breakfast at Tiffany’s Buddy Ebsen Net Worth Buddy Ebsen-Hackett California Character actor Christian Rudolf Ebsen Dorothy Knott (m. 1985–2003) Film Florida Golden Boot Awards (1984) Hollywood Walk Of Fame (1960) Illinois King of the Hill Nancy Wolcott McKeown (m. 1945–1985) Orlando High School Reading Rainbow Rollins College in Winter Park Ruth Cambridge Ruth Cambridge (m. 1936–1942) Singer Sr. and Frances St. Louis Walk of Fame Television The Andy Griffith Show The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) Torrance TV Land Awards (2004) U.S. United States University of Florida in Gainesville Vilma Ebsen

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Quick Info

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Trademarks

1. Towering height.
2. The catchphrase “Wellll, doggies!”
3. His deep, croaking, commanding voice
4. The role of Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
5. His unusual, almost surreal dancing and singing style

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Quotes

• I can walk on any stage in the English-speaking world and say, ‘Well, doggies!’ and I’m home free.
• [For gaining popularity as the sixty-something Barbaby Jones]: With such a glut of private-eye shows, I didn’t see how another one could succeed, I really thought the network was making a mistake.
• They had poise. They never felt out of place.
• [As to why he didn’t want to star in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), in the first place]: I was reluctant to do it, because I didn’t think I had any business in this picture because it was gonna be all new people. And then Penelope got on the phone and finally persuaded me to do it. She felt that it was a good comedy notion, and I think it turned out she was right.
• [Who said in 1993 about an admirer Jim Varney playing his predecessor’s role that made him famous, 3 decades ago]: I want to welcome Jim Varney into a very exclusive club. That’s the Uncle Jed Club. There are hundreds of actors that have played Hamlet, but only two have played Jed Clampett.
• [on the effects of aluminum poisoning that forced his relinquishing the ‘Tin Man’ role] Production had been underway for ten days when, one night after dinner,I took a deep breath – and nothing happened! I felt like no air had reached my lungs… as though someone had coated them with glue. And my breathing was excruciatingly labored. I wondered if I was dying.
• [In 1993]: “It’s therapeutic. When I get depressed, I just rent a cassette [of it] and I feel good. I don’t have to see a doctor.”
• [For gaining popularity for playing fifty-something Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies]: “I don’t see how people can see themselves or their friends in our show.”
• [Who said in 1964 when his first given name was: Christian Rudolph Ebsen, Jr.]: “It was a German community, and the schools taught German as well as English. Although it was my first language, I never became fluent in it. When I was filming ‘Night People’ in Berlin, a few years ago, I was often complimented on my accent, but never on my vocabulary or grammar.”
• [Who said in 1971 as to why he’d done things on tour rather than staying at home sailing one of his boats]: “Well, I’ve always loved the stage, and naturally it’s been a long time since I played to a live audience. So I got this hankering, or itch, maybe it’s almost like a disease”
• [About Cass Daley]: “Anyway, Cass Daley is with me in the cast of 10 and it’s a happy group we have. I don’t want to sound like a Don Quixote-type character, but I’m sort of on a one-man rampage to find out if there isn’t a place on stage for good, clean fun, the kind of wholesome entertainment people used to enjoy some years back. And so far, the attendance on this tour has backed me up.”
• They got a lot of very important people to make a comment about ‘Hillbillies,’ its position in the general tapestry of Americana.
• [When he was playing the saxophone, the same instrument that inspired future president Bill Clinton, to play it long after him]: “Sixty-seven years ago, I owned a saxophone and played in the high school band. I said, ‘Shucks, if he can do it, I can.'”
• [Who believed in 1962 about The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) making it a surefire hit]: “It has several things going for it – including the scripts. First, there’s the contrast between a historically primitive culture and an extremely modern one. And the simple one doesn’t come off second best because the people are kind and direct. Then, there’s the business about the country jakes with 25 million dollars who appear to be ripe for the slickers – but never get taken because of their basic honesty and goodness. People always like that – the story of the wise fools, a classic.”
• [Who said in 1963 about his career before starring in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962)]: “I’m a straight man in the series. Jed is essentially not a comedy character, so my job is to set up the situations and the lines. Occasionally, Jed will make a droll observation and sometimes when the show is slanted toward him, I’ll play in a comedy scene. But for the most part I feed lines to the others.”
• My father was born in what used to be Denmark and later became part of Germany. After what my uncle told him about his experiences in the German army, my father thought he had better get out of the country fast. That’s why he came to the United States when he was 16 and went to Chicago, where his sister had married the postmaster.
• [Where he spent most of his time aboard a weather ship outside of Seattle, where he doesn’t consider a total loss]: “I met my present wife Nancy during the war. She was in the Coast Guard, too, and stationed in Seattle as a communications officer. We were both lieutenants, j.g., but I got my extra half stripe before we got married, so I outranked her.”
• [Who said in 1977 about his tune, The September Song, taken from Knickerbocker Holiday]: “I don’t consider ‘September Song’ a survivor song, but there is one line which expresses why I’ll never retire. That’s these few golden days I’ll spend with you.”
• [Who was still going on strong with his Barnaby Jones character]: “After this, I’ll just get into something else. Some other job. I can’t do nothing.”
• I have about six plays and I want to write ‘My First 50 Years in Show Business.’ My mother, God bless her, saved every letter from 1928 on. Every clipping pictures. She squirreled it all away.
• [When he had a lot of time writing, Mark Shera, joined the cast of Barnaby Jones (1973), as J.R.]: “I said we have two clever people on the show. Lee Meriwether and Mark Shera. I said why don’t you do a number of shows in which they carry the load. They agreed to that and it gives me more time to do the things I want to do.”
• [Of his Barnaby Jones character]: “Barnaby is more of a fox. He counterpunches. Let’s somebody make a mistake and he capitalizes on it.”
• [on being a best-selling author]: “Writing fiction, there are no limits to what you write as long as it increases the value of the paper you are writing on.”
• [Who said as to why The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) was his favorite TV series to date]: “The one flaw in this is that you can’t hear the people laughing.”
• [Who said in 1965 about his stage performances]: “I probably enjoyed show business most when I was doing plays like ‘The Male Animal’ and ‘Good Night, Ladies,’ when people would lay down their money and laugh and you’d see them walk out happy. By God, I’d feel honest. I could go home with a good taste in my mouth. You’d feel better, you’d feel more alive and like you were justifying your existence.”
• [Who thought in 1973 for a while about the Barnaby Jones character he portrayed]: “Besides being older, he approaches problems more calmly. Not that he’s incapable of being worked up. He has compassion for the victim, compassion for the bereaved and compassion really for the convicted. Not that he’s soft. He’s a embodiment of what someone once said about a tough skipper-he’s hard, but he’s fair.”
• I’ve been typecast as various things in my career. As a cute little-well, not-so-little, brother-sister dance team. I got by that and that was deliberate. I played heavies for about eight or nine years. It was my agent’s idea. He said we’d have to break this mold.
• [When asked why he had returned to the rigors of a weekly show (Matt Houston (1982)), at the age of 76. (1984)]: “I’m used to getting up at dawn and going to the studio to be with my pals on the set. It’s my lifestyle and I wouldn’t trade it for any other.”
• ‘As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.’ Often the values of the influences imposed on us by our mothers and fathers, our teachers and certain friends, are not realized until years later, when we, as a sailor does, look back at our wakes to determine the course we have steered that got us to where we are. Today when I look back, then look around me to see with whom I am standing, I fully realize the influence on my life that must be credited to DeMolay.
• You get more negative reactions than positive reactions as you go through life, and the big lesson is nobody counts you out but yourself…I never have, I never will.
• [Commenting on having written a romance novel at age 93]: “There are a lot of mes.”
• You take a blank piece of paper and, whatever you’re thinking, you write it down. I’m very satisfied if, in my mind, it increased the value of the paper. That’s what writing should do. It should increase the value of the paper.

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Important Facts

• Bore a slight resemblance and sounded like Peter Graves.
• Had often fallen asleep in his car and fallen asleep standing up, on the set of Barnaby Jones (1973).
• He was most widely known to be a social butterfly.
• Had commuted from his Newport Beach house to Los Angeles, every weekend for 8 1/2 seasons, while starring in Barnaby Jones (1973).
• His daughter, Bonnie Ebsen, had guest-starred on Barnaby Jones (1973).
• Had known Max Baer Jr.’s family, when Max was just a little boy. Years later, all grown up, Baer Jr. would co-star opposite Ebsen in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• He was known to be a very busy actor.
• Had taught his The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) co-star, Max Baer Jr., how to sail, when sailing wasn’t his cup of tea.
• Had many times sailed with James Arness.
• On both of his shows, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Barnaby Jones (1973), his characters danced in a few episodes, in real-life, Ebsen was also a dancer.
• Had a photographic memory. According to his Barnaby Jones (1973) co-star, Lee Meriwether, she said in an interview, Ebsen had a wonderful memory and would put his lines down immediately.
• According to his The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) co-star, Donna Douglas, she said in an interview, that she reminded Ebsen of her late father. She also said in the same interview, most of her scenes, on that show were with Ebsen.
• His good friend Ruth Warrick, and his former Barnaby Jones (1973) co-star, Lee Meriwether, both starred in the long-running daytime soap opera, All My Children (1970), from 1996 to 1998.
• Ebsen had exchanged guitar lessons, with Fess Parker, who took dancing lessons.
• Began his second show Barnaby Jones (1973) at age 64.
• Said in an interview that his favorite show was The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Began writing songs in high school.
• In 1962, Ebsen was one of the actors to have joined the ranks of other sitcom male lead stars, such as John Forsythe, Andy Griffith, Danny Thomas, Alan Young, Robert Young, Fred MacMurray and Ernest Borgnine (whose sitcom McHale’s Navy (1962), debuted just 2 weeks after Ebsen’s) to star in his own popular sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Behind Mickey Rooney and Bob Hope, Ebsen was the third actor ever to have an extended acting career, longer than anybody else in the business.
• Was the producers first choice for the lead role of Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955), but lost the role to fellow actor Fess Parker. Ebsen played Parker’s sidekick in the series.
• Before he was a successful actor, in the 1930s, he formed a vaudeville act with his sister, Vilma Ebsen, performing throughout the country.
• He and his third wife, Dorothy Knott, were stopped by a police officer. Then he stuck his head in the window, looked at Ebsen and said, ‘Georgie Russell!’ That was the only time that a cop has let either him and his wife off, by not giving them a ticket.
• Longtime friends of Ruth Warrick, Michael Landon, James Arness and Cameron Mitchell.
• When Ebsen was in his early 20s, he traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he participated in a lot of plays: ‘Whoopee,’ ‘The Male Animal,’ and ‘Apple of His Eye.’.
• Ebsen had a unique Disney connection. It was Disney that hired him in 1955 for the Davy Crockett series that ended an almost 20 year absence from leading movie roles after he rejected MGM’s 1938 contract offer. Disney, however, appears to have always been a “good luck” charm for Ebsen. In his first film, Broadway Melody of 1936, in his first scene he is wearing a Mickey Mouse sweater. Ebsen appeared just a few years later in the followup film, Broadway Melody of 1938. In the second scene in which he appears, he is wearing a Donald Duck sweater/shirt.
• Between The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Barnaby Jones (1973), he had roles on television for 18 consecutive seasons.
• Was one of the two actors to appear in every episode of Barnaby Jones (1973).
• Appeared on the front cover of TV Guide 8 times.
• Buddy Ebsen died on July 6, 2003. Just 3 weeks after his death, his longtime best friend, comedian Bob Hope, passed away.
• Was a spokesperson for the United Way in the late 1960s-early 1970s.
• Had purchased the 4,398 square ft. house in Palos Verdes Estates, California, in, late 1985, and lived there until his death. The house was sold in 2007.
• Attended Michael Landon’s funeral in 1991.
• He was set to make a cameo appearance on Son of the Beach (2000), but was forced to cancel it due to failing health.
• Ebsen became embroiled in a contract dispute with MGM that left him idle for long periods.
• Published his first novel: “Kelly’s Quest.” He is writing a novel based on his Barnaby Jones character. [April 2001]
• Was a Boy Scout.
• Had began writing since high school.
• Celebrated his 84th birthday at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California in 1992. Among the guests were Donna Douglas, Max Baer Jr., his widow, Dorothy Knott, Leigh Taylor-Young, Barbara Eden, Fess Parker, Ken Kercheval, Patrick Duffy, Jacklyn Zeman, Kin Shriner, Anthony Geary, Lee Horsley, Steve Allen, Pierce Brosnan, Milton Berle, Norm Crosby, Ray Conniff, Terry Moore, Ruth Warrick, Penny Singleton Joseph Cotten, Lew Ayres, Ann Rutherford, Virginia Mayo, Yvonne De Carlo, Jane Powell and Tony Martin.
• Was good friends with Eddie Albert, where the two began their lifelong friendship from 1956 until Ebsen’s own death in 2003. He worked with him on Attack (1956) and The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Survived by 7 children and 2 nephews.
• Despite being an average student at Orlando High School, he was a member of the swimming team, which he participated all 4 years, who became a Florida State Champion. He also played football his senior year.
• Ebsen’s family moved to Palm Beach, Florida, in 1919, at age 11, to help his mother’s aggravated sickness.
• Before he was a successful actor, he did everything from being a lifeguard to being a waiter.
• Before his death, both of his ex-The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) co-stars, Donna Douglas and Max Baer Jr., went to visit him in the hospital, during his final days.
• His birthplace, Belleville, Illinois, is located 16 miles East of St. Louis, Missouri.
• Had been an entertainer since the age of 20.
• Longtime best friend Fess Parker attended his funeral.
• On Barnaby Jones (1973), he played a private eye detective, on Matt Houston (1982), he also played a private eye detective.
• Was a longtime friend of Dick Van Dyke, who hosted his memorial service on 30 August 2003.
• Began his television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) at age 54.
• Was one of the three actors who appeared in every episode of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Was approached by Paul Henning for his first choice as the lead role of Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Worked with William Conrad in episodes of both shows: Barnaby Jones (1973), which Conrad appeared on the first episode, and another afterwards and Cannon (1971).
• Was Quinn Martin’s first choice for the lead role of Barnaby Jones (1973), he accepted it, which was his comeback to television, after a 2 year absence.
• Dancing ran in his family.
• Long lives ran in his family.
• His second ex-wife, Nancy Wolcott McKeown, died on May 14, 2008, just 1 day before her 90th birthday.
• German was his first language.
• Met Nancy Wolcott, when he was serving as a Coast Guard in World War II. The two would remain married, for 40 years, until their divorce in 1985.
• Upon his death, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.
• After his final guest-starring role on King of the Hill (1997), he retired from acting at age 91.
• Before he was a successful actor, he worked at a soda fountain shop.
• When he turned to acting, he and the rest of his family were financially broke.
• Began his contract career at MGM in 1935.
• Met Fess Parker, when they were both under contract at Disney, where the two began a lifelong friendship, from 1954 until Ebsen’s own death in 2003. He was 16 years Parker’s senior.
• On The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), his character always wore a tattered hat, a tan coat, blue jeans and a fake mustache, in real-life, he wore none of those, ex. his blue jeans.
• Got the nickname ‘Buddy’ from his aunt, so Christian changed his name to Buddy Ebsen.
• Buddy Ebsen died on July 6, 2003. Just three months before his death, he celebrated his 95th birthday, on April 2.
• Didn’t start acting until he was age 28.
• Moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1935.
• Dropped out of college, to pursue showbiz.
• Acting mentor and friends of Donna Douglas, Max Baer Jr. and Lee Meriwether.
• Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1765 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
• When he left Florida to arrive in New York City in 1928, he had $26.75 in his pocket. He and Vilma both formed the act, while attending supper clubs. In Vaudeville, they were known as “The Baby Astaires”.
• Future game show host Bob Barker, talk show host Jerry Springer and comedians Jim Varney, Drew Carey and Graham Elwood, all said Ebsen was their childhood television hero.
• While filming Barnaby Jones (1973), he was hospitalized with pains in his legs. [2 July 1976].
• Graduated from Orlando High School in Orlando, Florida, in 1926.
• Remained friends with Donna Douglas and Max Baer Jr. during and after The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
• Remained friends with Lee Meriwether during and after Barnaby Jones (1973).
• Of Danish and Latvian descent.
• At age 12, his family moved to Orlando, Florida, where Ebsen was raised.
• Before he was a successful actor, he was a successful singer and dancer.
• Was very good friends with: Fess Parker, Raymond Bailey, Irene Ryan, Eddie Albert, Frank Cady, Bea Benaderet, Cameron Mitchell, Broderick Crawford, Robert Conrad, Larry Manetti, Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, Eleanor Powell, Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, John Wayne, James Arness, Dick Van Dyke, William Shatner, Ray Bolger, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Kenneth Tobey, Donald O’Connor, Florence Rice, Vilma Ebsen, Fred Astaire, Jonathan Winters, Una Merkel, Paul Henning, Linda Henning, Keith Larsen, John Carter, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Fred MacMurray, Tony Martin, Ruth Warrick, Jane Wyman, Beverly Garland, Mickey Rooney, Ruta Lee, Clint Eastwood, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Charles Lane and Patricia Neal.
• He had 15 hobbies over his long life: dancing, playing guitar, coin collecting, swimming, golfing, riding horses, sailing, painting, building sailboats, spending time with his family, politics, gardening, fishing, traveling and singing.
• His series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) was canceled at the end of the ninth season, because of the infamous rural purge that axed all shows in 1971.
• His series Barnaby Jones (1973) was canceled at the end of the eighth season, because Buddy had decided to retire from acting.
• After he died, his family sent Shirley Temple an invitation to his memorial, but she declined.
• Co-founder of the Beverly Hills Coin Club with a young, unknown actor, Chris Aable.
• His former Barnaby Jones (1973) co-star, Lee Meriwether, said he reminded her a lot of Ray MacDonnell, with whom she had a wonderful relationship on All My Children (1970).
• Almost all of his sisters lived long lives, just like Buddy himself. Helga died in 1994, at the age of 92 and Norma died in 1996, also at the age of 92. His sister, Vilma, died in 2007, just four years after her brother’s own death.
• Son Dustin Ebsen is married to Stan Freberg ‘s daughter Donna.
• Biography in: “The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives”. Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 161-163. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
• Best remembered by the public for his starring role as Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) or as the lead role on Barnaby Jones (1973).
• He and his The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) co-star, Donna Douglas, had a lot in common. Like Buddy, she too is a successful singer (of gospel), is also a character actress, and is also a Republican.
• Owned a 36-acre ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.
• He served in the Coast Guard during World War II as the executive officer on the Pocatello, a submarine chaser in the North Pacific.
• Fathered two daughters, Elizabeth Ebsen and Alix Ebsen, with his first wife, Ruth. Had five additional children (Susannah, Cathy, Bonnie Ebsen, Kiersten Kiki Ebsen, and Dustin Ebsen) with his second wife, Nancy.
• He and sister Vilma Ebsen performed in vaudeville doing variations on the same theme — with Vilma playing a dancing instructor who teaches the seemingly uncoordinated country doofas Buddy how to dance. A vaudeville showstopper in such shows as “Whoopee!”, “Flying Colors” and “The Ziegfeld Follies of 1934”, they were known for a time as “The Baby Astaires”.
• Had four sisters – Helga, Norma, Vilma Ebsen and Leslie. He was the middle child.
• Set up the Ebsen School of Dance in Pacific Palisades, California. When Buddy was young, his father, a physical fitness advocate, taught dance in West Palm Beach, Florida. This is where Buddy and younger sister Vilma Ebsen learned their craft and they appeared in local and school productions.
• In the last two years of his life, he recorded his first CD in which he sang some of his own songs.
• Taught Judy Garland the shim-sham shimmy while they were at MGM.
• Appeared in three musical film extravaganzas starring tap great Eleanor Powell.
• Was initiated into DeMolay at the John M. Cheney Chapter in Orlando Florida, in 1926. DeMolay is a Masonic youth organization for young men between 12 and 21. Was inducted into the DeMolay Hall of Fame on June 21, 1996.
• Wrote a half dozen plays, five of which were produced, including a farce called Honest John in 1948 and Champagne General in 1973, a Civil War story. Also a part-time songwriter, he became a newly-published author of a romantic novel at the age of 93, titled Kelly’s Quest.
• One of his last roles was a gag cameo in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) in which Jim Varney played Jed Clampett. Ebsen showed up as Barnaby Jones.
• His father owned a dance studio, and when Ebsen was a young boy insisted that he take dance lessons.
• Director Norman Foster first recommended Ebsen to Walt Disney to play Davy Crockett, and Disney was “half sold” on the idea. Then Disney saw Fess Parker in the sci-fi film Them! (1954) and cast the strapping actor as the famed frontiersman. Ebsen was crestfallen because he knew how big the picture would be. The next day the studio signed Ebsen on as Crockett’s weatherbeaten sidekick, Georgie Russel. The part helped to turn his career around and arguably played a part in Ebsen’s getting the role of the equally grizzled and popular Jed Clampett.
• Initially wanted to become a doctor. He took premed courses at Rollins College and the University of Florida, but his mother persuaded him into show business.
• In 1938, MGM offered him a seven-year contract, starting at $2,000 a week but requiring him to give the studio absolute control over his career. He rejected it. MGM blackballed him and his film career went into eclipse for nearly 20 years, until Walt Disney hired him to play Georgie Russel, Davy Crockett’s sidekick, in Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955).
• After seeing Ebsen in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), the creator of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) wanted him to play family patriarch Jed Clampett. At the time, Ebsen was thinking of retiring, but the producers sent him a copy of the script, and he changed his mind.
• An outspoken Republican, he helped defeat Nancy Kulp, his co-star in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), in her 1984 Democratic congressional bid in Pennsylvania. Ebsen made radio ads for her opponent accusing Kulp of being “too liberal” and not good for the district. The two did not speak for years after the incident, but eventually settled their differences.
• Originally cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Buddy was hospitalized as a result of inhaling aluminum powder used as part of his make-up. One chorus of “We’re Off to See the Wizard” in the movie and soundtrack album retain Ebsen’s original vocals as the Tin Man, recorded before he was forced to leave the production. Because of the prolonged hospitalization, he was replaced by Jack Haley (whose reformulated make-up used pre-mixed aluminium dust), and Ebsen’s scenes were re-shot using Haley. Footage of Ebsen as the Tin Man still exists, and was included as an extra with the U.S. 50th anniversary video release of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
• Became a bestselling author at age 93. [2001]
• Had surgery on June 10, 1998 to repair an aortic valve in his heart.
• Attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida shortly before starting his film career.
• In the 1930s, Disney animators filmed him dancing in front of a grid to “choreograph” Wayne Allwine’s dance steps for the Silly Symphony cartoons.
• His first wife, Ruth, was originally Walter Winchell’s secretary/Girl Friday.

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Filmography

Christian Ludolf Ebsen, Jr. Awards