1. Early life

2. Movies and TV

3. Green Acres

4. Personal life

5. References

6. External links

Hank Patterson (born Elmer Calvin Patterson; October 9, 1888 – August 23, 1975) was an American actor and musician. He is known foremost for playing two recurring characters on three television series: the stableman Hank Miller on Gunsmoke and farmer Fred Ziffel on both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.

Early life

Patterson was born in Springville, Alabama, one of seven children^[1] of Green Davis Patterson, an insurance agent,^[2] and Mary Isabell "Mollie" Newton Patterson.^[3] By the 1890s his family had moved to Taylor, Texas, where he spent most of his boyhood and attended school through 8th grade.^[4][5] In 1917 he registered for a World War I draft card in Lubbock County, Texas.^[6]

Patterson had intended to be a serious pianist, but he instead became a vaudeville piano player. By the end of the 1920s he moved to California. He entered the movie business as an actor during the 1930s. His earliest identified screen work was an uncredited appearance in the Roy Rogers' Western film The Arizona Kid (1939).^[7]

Movies and TV

Patterson found plenty of movie work, mainly playing cantankerous types as well as blacksmiths, hotel clerks, farmers, shopkeepers and other townsmen, usually bit roles and character parts^[4] in Republic Pictures westerns, and then in popular TV westerns such as The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Kit Carson, The Lone Ranger, and Annie Oakley. He also had small cameo appearances in a number of sci-fi movies by Bert I. Gordon: Beginning of the End (film), The Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the Puppet People, and Earth vs. The Spider.

Patterson played recurring or different roles in adult/family TV westerns, including the role of "Hank Miller" in 33 episodes of Gunsmoke from 1962 through 1972,^[8][9] on Have Gun-Will Travel (eleven episodes),^[10][11][12] Death Valley Days (nine episodes), Tales of Wells Fargo (seven episodes),^[13][14] Maverick (four episodes),^[4] Cheyenne (four episodes), Wagon Train (three episodes), Daniel Boone (three episodes), The Virginian (two episodes), The Rifleman, Bonanza, and in episodes of Lawman, Bat Masterson, The Restless Gun, and many others.^[15]

He made additional TV appearances, including three episodes of The Twilight Zone^[16][17] as well as Perry Mason,^[18] Burke's Law, The Untouchables, Judd for the Defense, My Three Sons, and in later years The Mod Squad and Love, American Style and Highway Patrol.

Green Acres

In 1963 Patterson first appeared in what would become a recurring role as farmer Fred Ziffel on the popular CBS rural comedy Petticoat Junction. In 1965 CBS debuted another rural comedy, Green Acres. Both series were set in the mythical farming community of Hooterville, with characters from Petticoat Junction often also appearing in Green Acres, including Patterson's Fred Ziffel character. It was on the popular, irreverent Green Acres that Patterson earned his greatest fame. In 1965 and 1966—two of the years in which the two series ran concurrently—Patterson frequently appeared in both shows in the same week on primetime.^[10]

The association of Patterson's character with the popular character Arnold, the pet pig whom Fred and his wife Doris treated as a son, ensured Patterson a place in TV history. Arnold attended school, watched TV and was a talented artist, piano player, and actor. He even "talked" (snorted, grunted and squealed) in a language that everyone in Hooterville seemed to understand except Oliver Wendell Douglas (Green Acres co-star Eddie Albert).^[19][20]

According to westernclippings.com "Characters and Heavies" by Boyd Magers, "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."^[15]

Personal life

Hank Patterson was married to Daisy Marguerite (Sheeler)^[21] Patterson, a Kentucky native^[22] four years younger than Hank whose parents were both of German ancestry.^[23] They are listed together in both the 1930^[24] and 1940 U.S. Census residing in Los Angeles. In the 1940 census, Hank's occupation is listed as "Actor, Motion Picture Studio & Stage."^[5]

Patterson's great-grandfather, James Pearson, was an original settler of St. Clair County, Alabama, as was his mother's great-grandfather, Thomas Newton. His great-grandfather, Henry S. Patterson, moved to Blount County, Alabama, around 1857 from Murray County, Georgia. Between 1894 and 1897, the family left Alabama to live in Texas.

Hank Patterson died at age 86 on August 23, 1975^[25] of bronchial pneumonia. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood.^[26] Daisy died, also at age 86, on February 2, 1979.^[21]

Patterson's great-niece is actress Téa Leoni.^[27]

References

External links

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