Dabbs Greer

Dabbs Greer
Greer in an episode of TV's Superman (1954)
Born	Robert William Greer (1917-04-02)April 2, 1917 Fairview, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 28, 2007(2007-04-28) (aged 90) Pasadena, California, U.S.
Resting place	Peace Valley Cemetery, Anderson, Missouri, U.S.
Years active	1938–2003

Robert William "Dabbs" Greer (April 2, 1917 – April 28, 2007) was an American character actor in film and television for over 60 years. With nearly 100 film roles and appearances in nearly 600 television episodes of various series, Greer may be best remembered as series regular "Mr. Jonas" (storekeeper in Gunsmoke), as Coach Ossie Weiss in the sitcom Hank, and as series regular Reverend Robert Alden in Little House on the Prairie. Greer may be better known to later audiences as the 108-year-old version of the character played by Tom Hanks in 1999's The Green Mile.

Early life[]

Greer was born in Fairview, Missouri, the son of Bernice Irene (née Dabbs), a speech teacher, and Randall Alexander Greer, a druggist.^[1][2] Not long after, the family moved to the larger Anderson, Missouri, 30 miles (48 km) southwest when Greer was an infant.^[3] At the age of eight, he began acting in children's theater productions. He attended Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where he was a member of Theta Kappa Nu.^[1]

Career[]

After moving to Pasadena, California in 1943, he became an administrator and acting instructor at the Pasadena Playhouse.^[1]

His film debut was as an extra in the 1938 film Jesse James, which was filmed mainly around Pineville, Missouri. He told the Neosho Daily News in 2002, "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."^{[citation needed]} Greer appeared in three episodes of Adventures of Superman, including the inaugural entry, "Superman on Earth" (1952), in which he was cast as the first person ever to be saved by Superman. He was the major guest star, as a man framed for murder in "Five Minutes to Doom" (1954), and as an eccentric millionaire in "The Superman Silver Mine" (1958).

Among the hundreds of appearances in nearly 200 different television series, he played 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 . In the 1956 movie Hot Rod Girl he played the auto repair shop owner Mr. Fry.

In 1957, he appeared in the episode "Revenge" of the syndicated crime drama and as Sanders in the episode "My Horse Ajax" of NBC's children's western series Fury. He guest-starred about this time on the syndicated adventure series Whirlybirds, starring Kenneth Tobey and Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries. He joined David Janssen in an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective.

He was cast on the syndicated western series Pony Express, starring Grant Sullivan. Greer guest-starred as well on three CBS western series, Steve McQueen's Wanted: Dead or Alive, Trackdown starring Robert Culp, and Don Durant's Johnny Ringo. Thereafter, he appeared in the NBC modern western series Empire, and he also guest-starred on Jack Lord's drama series about the rodeo circuit, Stoney Burke.

Greer 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 The Gray Ghost, and as Ed Grimes on the 1958 episode "312 Vertical" of Rod Cameron's syndicated series State Trooper. He appeared too in It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958).

Other appearances in 1959 included the episode "Peligroso" on NBC's western series The Restless Gun and episodes of Bat Masterson and the syndicated Man Without a Gun.

From 1956 until 1974, Greer had a recurring role as storekeeper Mr. Jonas, on the long-running TV series "Gunsmoke". He appeared in 42 episodes of the series. Occasionally he would play someone other than Mr. Jonas, and in one episode as Chester's uncle on Gunsmoke.^{[citation needed]}

In 1960 he appeared in the episode "Dark Fear" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.

He was cast in The Twilight Zone in the 1962 episode titled "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" and the 1963 episode "Valley of the Shadow", and in a 1963 segment of Jack Palance's ABC circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth.

The 1960s brought Greer several more recurring roles in popular series, such as track coach Ossie Weiss in Hank and Sheriff Norris "Norrie" Coolidge in The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. Greer also made many appearances on the very popular series The Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford, playing both good-guy and bad-guy characters.

In 1962, on the ABC/WB western series Lawman, in an episode titled "The Unmasked", starring John Russell and Peter Brown, Greer was cast in an entirely fictitious portrayal of Boston Corbett, the Union Army soldier who shot and mortally wounded John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

In 1963, Greer was cast as Jack Tabor in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Skeleton's Closet". He guest-starred in seven other Perry Mason episodes. He portrayed, for example, a drunkard in "The Case of the Left-Handed Liar"; a murderer in three other episodes, "The Case of the Prudent Prosecutor", "The Case of the Lavender Lipstick" and "The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands" and a murder victim in "The Case of the Fugitive Nurse". Greer can also be seen alongside other guest actors (Dewey Martin, Patricia Crowley, Ray Danton, Andrew Duggan, Walter Burke, David Carradine, and Dick Wessel) in a 1964 episode of Arrest and Trial titled "The Black Flower", portraying a store owner wounded in a robbery. That same year he performed in an episode of The Outer Limits, "The Children of Spider County", in which he is the protective father of a country girl who is enamored with the son of an extraterrestrial. Later, in 1967, Greer, then played an alien himself, posing as a Catholic priest in "The Experiment", an episode of The Invaders. In 1969, Greer was cast as the minister who officiated the wedding of Mike and Carol Brady in the first episode of The Brady Bunch.

As Reverend Alden, he had a prominent recurring role in the NBC series Little House on the Prairie 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 Mike and Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch; and from 1992 to 1996 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 appearance on an episode of Scott Baio's Charles in Charge in the role of Buzz Powell.

In the May 9, 1991, episode of L.A. Law titled "On the Toad Again", he played a character addicted to a "high" produced by licking the skin secretions of psychoactive toads. In the 1997 film Con Air, Greer appeared as the old man discovered hiding under a pickup truck at "Lerner Field" by Nicolas Cage's character Cameron Poe.

His final feature film was a prominent role as the 108-year-old version of the character played by Tom Hanks in 1999's The Green Mile, 61 years after Greer was an extra in the 1938 film Jesse James. Greer's last television performance was in a 2003 episode of Lizzie McGuire. Most of Greer's nearly 100 movie roles and appearances in nearly 600 television episodes of various series had been in supporting roles,^[1] but he told the Albany Times Union in 2000 that "every character actor, in their own little sphere, is the lead".^{[citation needed]}

Death[]

Greer, who had moved to Pasadena, California in 1943,^[1] died on April 28, 2007,^{[citation needed]} at Pasadena's Huntington Hospital, after a battle with kidney failure and heart disease, not quite a month after his 90th birthday.^[3] He never married and had no children. He is buried in his childhood hometown of Anderson, Missouri.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography[]

Film[]

Television[]

References[]

External links[]

• Dabbs Greer at IMDb 
• Dabbs Greer at AllMovie
• Dabbs Greer at the TCM Movie Database
• Dabbs Greer at Find a Grave