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Dabbs GreerAmerican actor
Date of Birth: 02.04.1917
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Dabbs Greer
Dabbs Greer was an American character actor who played numerous supporting roles in film and television over the course of his half-century career. With one of the most recognizable faces on television, Greer appeared in a total of 286 films and TV shows. His Southern accent helped him create unforgettable rural characters and Western personas, although he took on any role and portrayed a wide range of characters - from priests to shopkeepers, janitors to police officers, respected businessmen to notorious villains.
Early Life and Education
Robert William Greer, known as Dabbs (his mother's maiden name), was born on April 2, 1917, in the small town of Fairview, Missouri. His mother, Bernis Irene Dabbs, was a speech and drama teacher, and his father, Randall Alexander Greer, was a pharmacist. As a child, Greer and his family moved to Anderson, where he began to learn the basics of acting in children's theater productions. He attended Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where he was a member of the secret student society 'Theta Kappa Nu'.
Acting Career
Greer made his film debut in 1938, appearing in a movie about the famous American outlaw, Jesse James, who was also a native of Missouri, with the film being shot in Pineville. The local extras, recruited for authenticity and cost-saving purposes, were paid five dollars a day. For rural residents during the Great Depression, this was a significant amount of money for doing very little. Greer himself described it as the largest sum of money he and his fellow townspeople had seen at the time.
Throughout his career, Greer often played the role of a priest. In addition to his iconic portrayal of Reverend Alden in the television series 'Little House on the Prairie', where he provided advice and comfort to the main characters throughout 76 episodes, Greer played priests who officiated the weddings of Mike and Carol Brady in the popular sitcom 'The Brady Bunch' and Rob and Laura Petrie in 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'. He also portrayed Reverend Henry Novotny in the series 'Picket Fences', ministering to the spiritual needs of his congregation in the fictional town of Rome, Wisconsin.
Greer's role in the first episode of the cult series 'Adventures of Superman' in 1952 was significant. He portrayed the first person saved by Superman, playing an innocent man falsely accused and facing the electric chair. Superman came to his rescue, saving him once again in a later episode of the final season in 1958, when Greer played an eccentric millionaire.
In 1999, Greer played the role of 108-year-old Paul Edgecomb, a resident of the elderly care home 'Georgia Pines', in the film 'The Green Mile'. The character reflects on his time working as a prison guard in a Louisiana penitentiary and the strange events he witnessed in 1935. The young Paul Edgecomb was brilliantly portrayed by Tom Hanks.
Later Life and Death
Greer relocated to Pasadena in 1943. He passed away on April 28, 2007, at the age of 90, at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California, due to kidney and heart failure. His death was announced by a neighbor to the media, and later confirmed by the county coroner. Greer never married and did not have any children. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, best known for its annual 'Oscar' awards.
