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Eddie Albert never let his age slow him down
The actor made sure that he was doing his part.
Even twenty-five years after Green Acres, Eddie Albert was still working just as hard as when he was playing Oliver Douglas. His priorities, however, had been restructured. Whereas a few decades prior, Albert's focus was on working as an actor, later on, his primary goal became helping the environment.
In an article with The Parsons Sun, Albert wrote, "My job now for the next 20 or 25 years is to work on the environment." Albert didn't see his age as a hindrance, but rather, an advantage. He said, "I've got to use my experience to get out and do what I can to knock off this pillage of our natural environment."
Albert also said that he was "enraged" by the way people were inevitably forced out of spaces they were fully qualified to be in, simply because of their age. Strangely enough, Albert seemed to have accomplished more in the last decade of his life than many do with their entire lives. Of the experience, Albert commented, "What is the point of living if you don't do your best to leave the planet a little better for your having lived there?"
Still, Albert rebuffed any attempt to call himself an "ecologist." In a 1970 TV Guide interview, he said, "Ecologist, hell! Too mild a word. 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!"
While Albert's environmentalism became much more prominent as he got older, there is storied evidence throughout his career. In an interview with TV Guide, Albert explained his similarities to Oliver Douglas. Of hearing the premise of the show, he recalled, "I said, 'Swell, that's me.' Everyone gets tired of the rat race. Everyone would like to chuck it all and grow some carrots... Sign me up."
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