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How Buddy Ebsen learned to relax on the set of Barnaby Jones
It took a talk from Ebsen's wife to get the actor to calm down.
When you want a talented actor, you send in Buddy Ebsen. But when you want a superhero with nerves of steel, you send in Buddy Ebsen's wife.
Ebsen enjoyed a long career in television, starring in not one, but two hit shows. First, Ebsen appeared as Clampett patriarch Jed in The Beverly Hillbillies. The sitcom made audiences laugh for years before ending after nine seasons.
After the Hillbillies had ended, Ebsen wasn't ready to give up his television fame. Later, he starred as private investigator Barnaby Jones. While the role was incredibly different from his character on The Beverly Hillbillies, Ebsen once again enchanted audiences who tuned in every week to watch Jones's pursuit of the truth. "When Quinn Martin [the show's producer] and I talked about the character, he said, 'I see him as a foxy grandpa,'" said Ebsen during an interview with the Anchorage Times. "I figured I'd just play him as a human being with a job to do."
But after several years on the series, it became obvious that Ebsen was willing to work in television until he had to be physically pried away from the camera. Ebsen admitted that it was eventually his wife who confronted him. While a hard work ethic was good, Ebsen's wife convinced him that he needed to learn to relax.
"About three years ago, my wife said, 'You're working too hard, and if they work you that hard I'm gonna take you out of the show,'" said Ebsen. "And she could...Thanks to my wife's stubbornness, I'm taking things a little easier." Thanks to Mrs. Ebsen, Buddy learned to take it a little bit easier, and we're grateful for that.
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