12 Facts About The Green Acres Cast Only Real Fans Would Know

For six seasons from 1965 until 1971, "Green Acres" was the place to be. One of several TV sitcoms that celebrated the quirkiness of rural America, the series was set in the same universe as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction," all revolving around the imaginary town of Hooterville. "Green Acres" centered on city-slicker couple Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert) and wife Lisa (Eva Gabor), who move from their chic New York City apartment to a rundown farm — he, enthusiastically, she reluctantly. They're surrounded by an assortment of eccentric locals, including a dim-bulb handyman, a shady salesman, and neighbors who treat their hyper-intelligent pig like their child. 

"Green Acres" remained a solid ratings hit, yet that success didn't prevent the show's cancellation in 1971. At the time, CBS had realized the network was sitting on a demographic time bomb, with several hit shows catering to an older, rural demographic. In an effort to transform the network's image and attract younger, hipper viewers, "Green Acres" and its ilk were axed in what came to be known as the "rural purge," which became one of CBS' biggest scandals ever. 

Yet the show has lived on via reruns, earning legions of new viewers with each generation. For those who may be unaware of some of the more fascinating facts about the show and its actors, read on to discover 11 facts about the "Green Acres" cast that only real fans would know. 

As former Manhattan lawyer-turned-gentleman farmer Oliver Wendell Douglas, Eddie Albert's character demonstrated a love of the great outdoors, feeling a connection to the earth in his new role as shepherd of the land. That role was actually not much of a stretch for the actor, who embraced farming as a real-life hobby. He famously planted a cornfield in the front yard of his home, which sat upon three-quarters of an acre in posh Pacific Palisades.

Interestingly, Albert was not looking to star in a sitcom when he was offered "Green Acres." Having turned down the role of the dad in "My Three Sons," and an opportunity to co-star with a talking horse in "Mr. Ed," Albert was ready to say no — until he read the script and totally related to the premise of a New Yorker fleeing the big city to embrace a quiet life in the pastoral setting of a farm. "Swell, that's me," he recalled saying when he agreed to take the job, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. "Everyone gets tired of the rat race. Everyone would like to chuck it all and grow some carrots. It's basic. Sign me."

It's certainly true that "Green Acres" was incredibly popular with viewers throughout its six-season run. That popularity, however, did not extend to the voters of the Emmy Awards; throughout its time on television, the show received zero Emmy nominations. In fact, the first time that "Green Acres" was ever featured on the Emmys was decades after its cancellation, when "Will & Grace" star Megan Mullally and future POTUS Donald Trump paid tribute to the show by singing its iconic theme song during the 2006 Emmy telecast.

However, one member of the cast wound up showered in awards: Arnold the pig, the beloved porcine thespian whose character, Arnold Ziffel, became a fan favorite who even received mountains of fan mail. Arnold won several PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) Awards from the American Humane Association during the course of "Green Acres," including being recognized as TV's best animal actor in 1968. What fans might not have realized was that Arnold was actually played by several different pigs, with some estimates placing that number as high as a dozen.

Arnold was also at the center of what is arguably one of the most bizarre urban legends ever to be associated with "Green Acres." According to lore, cast and crew gleefully chowed down on a dinner of roast Arnold during a Hawaiian-style luau held at the show's final wrap party. Speaking with the rumor-busting website Snopes.com, the pigs' trainer, Frank Inn, insisted that it never happened.

There are few 1960s TV theme songs as memorable as the musical number that opens "Green Acres." As was the case with many theme songs of that era, the "Green Acres" intro explains the premise of the show, with Eddie Albert's Oliver opining about the simple joys of farm life ("Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside," he sings), while Eva Gabor's Lisa staunchly declares, "New York is where I'd rather stay." However, at the time, it was rare for a show's actors to sing the theme; with very few exceptions (Allan "Rocky" Lane, who provided the voice of the titular talking horse in "Mr. Ed," sang that show's theme song), these TV themes were typically handled by professional singers. 

Both actually had musical backgrounds. Albert sang in the movie musical "Oklahoma!" and had a brief career as a pop singer in the 1950s, releasing a few unremarkable albums. Gabor began her showbiz career as a cabaret singer in her native Hungary, and sang in a nightclub act with sisters Zsa Zsa and Magda in Vegas showrooms and L.A. hotspot Ciro's. After "Green Acres," it became more common for TV themes to be sung by the show's actors. That includes the iconic "Brady Bunch" theme, which could be added to the list of things from 'The Brady Bunch' you only notice as an adult. 

Albert and Gabor revisited the theme in 1990, when interviewed by "Entertainment Tonight" while promoting the made-for-TV reunion movie "Return to Green Acres." Albert easily sang his verses from memory, while Gabor could only recall the line about being allergic to smelling hay. "I don't remember any more," she insisted.

One of the more memorable characters from "Green Acres" is Mr. Haney. A con-artist, snake-oil salesman who hawks all manner of shoddy merchandise from the back of his truck, he regularly swindled Oliver with one of a seemingly endless array of shady business ventures.

The character was played by Pat Buttram, a veteran of movie westerns who'd appeared in numerous horse operas as sidekick to singing cowboy Gene Autry. According to Horace Newton's "Encyclopedia of Television," Buttram had based Haney on Col. Tom Parker, the notoriously shifty manager of Elvis Presley. Buttram actually knew him personally, long before Col. Tom Parker's controversy with Elvis came to light. When Buttram first met Parker, he was a carnival barker luring rubes to his sideshow attraction.

"He had a sideshow, Col. Tom Parker's Dancing Turkeys — 25 cents. This is a true story, so help me," Buttram recalled in an interview with Randy Andrew. According to Buttram, farmers would pay their quarters and enter. Inside, Parker had set up a metal table covered in sawdust, upon which were 20 or so live turkeys. "When he'd get ready, he'd put a record on, and he'd turn on a little switch, and this little table would become a hot plate," Buttram recalled. As the pained turkeys frantically lifted their claws from the hot metal, the audience believed that Parker had miraculously trained the birds to dance. "And that was Col. Tom Parker's start in show business," Buttram added. "I've known Tom Parker for years."

Another regular on "Green Acres" was actor Hank Patterson, who played Fred Ziffel. His character was introduced in "Petticoat Junction," and Patterson would often appear in both hit shows during the same week. Viewers loved the character, but it's a safe bet that few — if any — realized that Patterson was almost totally deaf, the result of serving in the cavalry during World War I. 

Despite that setback, producers developed a clever way to keep him in the show. "Ironically, by the time Patterson was doing 'Green Acres' he was in his late 70s and almost completely deaf, but the producers loved his portrayal so much they worked around his hearing impairment by having the dialogue coach lying on the floor out-of-shot tapping Hank's leg with a yardstick as a cue to speak his line," wrote Boyd Magers in westernclippings.com, via TMDB.

Eddie Albert came to "Green Acres" with a lengthy roster of screen credits in film and television. Boasting a career that extended back to the 1930s, encompassing both drama and comedy, Albert received two Oscar nominations (one before "Green Acres," and another after). 

With all that experience under his belt, Albert was adamant in his belief that comedy was far more difficult to pull off. "Drama is easy," he said when he and "Green Acres" co-star Eva Gabor were interviewed by UPI in 1983. "You put some tears in your eyes with menthol and the whole story will carry you along. But comedy is instant to instant. You better know each time what's going to work and what isn't," Gabor concurred, pointing out the importance of timing and precision. "If you take a break at the wrong place you can lose the laugh," Gabor added. "It's the most delicate thing in the world."

While some sitcoms have been built around the improvisational skills of their stars — "Mork & Mindy," for example, routinely utilized Robin Williams' gift at improv with large chunks of the show ad-libbed off the top of his head — that was decidedly not the case with "Green Acres." According to Albert, he and the other actors on the show never deviated from the script. "There was no time to improvise on that program," he explained. "And furthermore, it was so well written, it would be impossible to improve on it ... We never changed a word ... It was so clean and so tight."

Throughout his life, "Green Acres" star Eddie Albert had maintained a longstanding appreciation for nature. Over the years, he gained a reputation as a trailblazing environmentalist — long before the word was commonly used. In a 1970 interview (via The Guardian), he balked at being described as an ecologist. "Ecologist, hell! Too mild a word," Edward said. "Check the department of agriculture – 60% of the world is hungry already. With our soil impoverished, our air poisoned, our wildlife crippled by DDT, our rivers and lakes turning into giant cesspools, and mass starvation an apparent inevitability by 1976, I call myself a human survivalist!" 

Albert's efforts to halt pollution and preserve the environment were augmented by his work as a special envoy for Meals for Millions, which provided food to impoverished nations. He also founded City Children's Farms, which taught inner-city kids to grow their own vegetables, and was instrumental in cleaning up pollution in Santa Monica Bay. 

The actor's work was honored by Senator Gaylord Nelson, who established Earth Day. In recognition of Albert's efforts in using his celebrity platform to promote environmental causes, the date Nelson selected for Earth Day was April 22 — Albert's birthday. Albert was deeply connected with Earth Day, even delivering a speech at the first-ever Earth Day rally in 1970.

Among his various environmental pursuits, Eddie Albert was also active in protecting endangered species. His stance on animal rights, however, proved baffling to his "Green Acres" co-star Eva Gabor.

While delivering a eulogy for Gabor at her 1995 funeral, Albert recalled their conversations on that particular topic. "'Everytime you hear about a sick fish, you make a speech. Vy?' And I would tell her, 'I think we ought to preserve nature, save wild animals,' and so on," Albert recalled, as reported by The New Yorker. On one particular day, Albert was stunned to see Gabor attired in a gown festooned with numerous feathers, and begged her to stop wearing it. 

When she questioned why, Albert told her that when other women saw her wearing that gown, they would want one as well. This, he explained, would result in the potential killing of thousands of birds. "And she said, 'But, Eddie, feathers don't come from birds,'" he continued. "'Well,' I asked, 'Where do they come from?' And she said, 'Dahlink. Pillows! Feathers come from pee-lowz!"

While Oliver and Lisa settled into farm life, they relied on farmhand Eb Dawson. Eb was played by Tom Lester, a native of Mississippi who had grown up working on his grandfather's farm. He'd earned a few college degrees, with a goal of becoming a physician, when he decided to take a shot at being an actor. Despite friends insisting he didn't have the handsome good looks required to make it in Hollywood, he relocated to Los Angeles and began studying with acting instructor Lurene Tuttle. As it happened, he wound up performing alongside fellow student Linda Kaye Henning. Henning's father was Paul Henning, creator of "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction," in which Linda would be cast.

"At that time [Henning] was the most powerful comedy producer in the world," Lester said in an interview, via The Hollywood Reporter. "So he'd come to see Linda Kaye ... and he liked me, got to know my little idiosyncrasies and all these things about me, because we'd have little parties over at his house and drink Cokes and eat hot dogs and have a good time." Thanks to that connection, Lester landed an audition to play Eb, one of reportedly 400 actors up for the role. He wound up winning the part due to his real-life farm experience — the only actor of all those who'd auditioned who could milk a cow.

When she joined "Green Acres" as Doris Ziffel, Barbara Pepper was at the tail end of a long and successful Hollywood career, racking up nearly 200 screen credits dating back to the early 1930s. In fact, her very first appearance onscreen was in the 1933 movie "Roman Scandals," in which she was one of the "Goldwyn Girls" alongside another aspiring young actor, Lucille Ball. From that experience, the two became lifelong friends. 

At one point during the strange marriage of Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz, the couple began planning their own TV sitcom, "I Love Lucy." When casting the role of neighbor Ethel Mertz, Ball's first choice was Bea Benaderet, the future "Petticoat Junction" star who'd played a similar role on the Ball-starring radio show that inspired "I Love Lucy," "My Favorite Husband." When Benaderet wasn't available, Ball wanted to offer the role to pal Pepper; however, she was also aware that Pepper had, over the years, become a heavy drinker. Because Arnaz had already cast William Frawley — who also had a reputation for hitting the bottle — as Fred Mertz, he felt having two hard drinkers in the cast could become problematic. Instead, the role went to Vivian Vance.  

However, Ball didn't forget Pepper, frequently bringing her onto the show as a guest star. All told, Pepper appeared in 10 episodes of "I Love Lucy." 

After the cancellation of "Green Acres," Eva Gabor remained a familiar face on TV; she voiced a cartoon mouse in Disney's animated hit "The Rescuers." While it's true that Eva Gabor had hidden scars that the cameras never saw, she also had a savvy business acumen that drove her successful sideline as an entrepreneur.

In 1969, while still starring in "Green Acres," she founded Eva Gabor International, which manufactured and sold lightweight synthetic wigs. "I had done a lot of movies and plays with costumes and wigs, and they used to be ghastly. They used to weigh tons," Gabor told the UPI in 1988. Before long, Gabor's company became the largest wig manufacturer in the world. "We got bigger and bigger, and now we are just the biggest," she said, revealing at that point the company was churning out a staggering 1.3 million wigs each year. While Gabor didn't reveal the company's revenue, at that time Eva Gabor International was estimated to be generating $30 million per year.

Many of the wigs were modeled on the hairstyles of various celebrities, including First Lady Nancy Reagan and Princess Diana (a pioneer in one particular aspect of being a celebrity). Naturally, there was a wig based on Gabor's coiffure. "Usually, the Eva wig — I don't want to sound conceited — very good seller!" Gabor declared while appearing on the TV talk show "Attitudes."

Eleanor Audley only appeared in 15 episodes of "Green Acres," yet she made quite an impact as Oliver's imperious, nagging mother. One fun fact viewers didn't realize was that Audley (born in November 1905) was only five months older than her TV son, born in April 1906.

Meanwhile, "Green Acres" viewers may not have known that Audley portrayed not one, but two iconic Disney villains: Lady Tremaine, the stepmother in Disney's animated 1950 classic "Cinderella," and sorceress Maleficent in 1959's "Sleeping Beauty."

Her association with Disney went beyond those two films. Her voice can still be heard in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, chanting incantations as Madam Leota, whose head appears within a crystal ball. Madam Leota's face, however, is not Audley's. While she provided the voice, the model for the character was Madam Leota's namesake, actor Leota Toombs.