Edgar Buchanan

Acting

Edgar Buchanan

Born 1903-03-20 · Humansville, Missouri, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Edgar Buchanan (March 20, 1903 – April 4, 1979) was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s. As Uncle Joe, he took over as proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel following the death of Bea Benaderet, who had played Kate Bradley. Early life Edgar Buchanan was born to Rose (Kee) Buchanan and William Edgar Buchanan Sr., DDS in Humansville, Missouri. He moved with his family to Oregon when he was seven. His father had a dental practice in Eugene, Oregon, and encouraged his son to follow suit. Buchanan Senior did not approve of his son's acting ambitions and pushed him to pursue dentistry instead. According to authors Arden and Joan Christen, Edgar's father believed "to choose a career in the theater was to settle for a life of mediocrity and uncertainty". Nevertheless, Edgar took courses in theater at the University of Oregon as a pre-med student, and was part of a Portland acting troupe in graduate school. He was also involved in the founding of the Portland Civic Theatre. In 1928, Edgar earned his DDS degree from North Pacific College School of Dentistry in Portland, Oregon, which later became Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry. During his time there, he met his future wife, Mildred "Millie" Spence (1907–1987). They married in 1928 - the same year they both graduated with dental degrees. The couple adopted a son and named him William Edgar "Buck" Buchanan III. Big changes came in 1939 when the family of three relocated their dental practice from Eugene, Oregon, to Altadena, California. There, Edgar joined the Pasadena Playhouse as an actor. Studio scouts spotted him performing at the playhouse and signed him into a seven-year deal in Hollywood. That same year, he appeared in his first film at age 36, and he left dentistry for good. Meanwhile, his wife, Dr. Millie Buchanan, DDS, took over the dental practice while also supporting her husband's new career as his talent manager. Career Buchanan appeared in more than 100 films, including Texas (1941), in which he played a dentist and appeared with William Holden and Glenn Ford and later in Penny Serenade (1941) with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942) with Ronald Colman, Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, The Man from Colorado (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), Shane (1953), She Couldn't Say No (1954), Ride the High Country (1962) with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, McLintock! (1963) with John Wayne, Move Over, Darling (1963) with Doris Day and James Garner, and Benji (1974). Death Buchanan died from a stroke complicated by pneumonia in Palm Desert, California in 1979. He was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. CLR Description above from the Wikipedia article Edgar Buchanan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Shane poster
7.3

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

Shane

1953

McLintock! poster
6.6

Aging rancher and self-made man, George Washington McLintock is forced to deal with numerous personal and professional problems. Seemingly everyone wants a piece of his enormous farmstead, including high-ranking government men and nearby Native Americans. As McLintock tries to juggle his various adversaries, his wife—who left him two years previously—suddenly returns. But she isn't interested in George; she wants custody of their daughter.

McLintock!

1963

Ride the High Country poster
7.1

An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.

Ride the High Country

1962

The Comancheros poster
6.7

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

The Comancheros

1961

Devil's Doorway poster
6.9

A Native American Civil War hero returns home to fight for his people.

Devil's Doorway

1950

The Talk of the Town poster
7.3

Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.

The Talk of the Town

1942

Gunpoint poster
6.2

A young, determined sheriff and his posse chase a gang of murderous train robbers, and a kidnapped woman into New Mexico.

Gunpoint

1966

Texas poster
6.7

Two Virginians are heading for a new life in Texas when they witness a stagecoach being held up. They decide to rob the robbers and make off with the loot. To escape a posse, they split up and don't see each other again for a long time. When they do meet up again, they find themselves on different sides of the law. This leads to the increasing estrangement of the two men, who once thought of themselves as brothers.

Texas

1941

Human Desire poster
6.7

A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife following a murder on a train.

Human Desire

1954

Benji poster
6.4

Benji is a stray who has nonetheless worked his way into the hearts of a number of the townspeople, who give him food and attention whenever he stops by. His particular favorites are a pair of children who feed and play with him against the wishes of their parents. When the children are kidnapped, however, the parents and the police are at a loss to find them. Only Benji can track them down, but will he be in time? If he can save the day, he may just find the permanent home he's been longing for.

Benji

1974

Cheaper by the Dozen poster
6.4

"Cheaper by the Dozen", based on the real-life story of the Gilbreth family, follows them from Providence, Rhode Island, to Montclair, New Jersey, and details the amusing anecdotes found in large families.

Cheaper by the Dozen

1950

The Sheepman poster
6.9

A stranger in a Western cattle-town behaves with remarkable self-assurance, establishing himself as a man to be reckoned with. The reason appears with his stock: a herd of sheep, which he intends to graze on the range. The horrified inhabitants decide to run him out at all costs.

The Sheepman

1958

Cimarron poster
6.2

The epic story of a family involved in the Oklahoma Land Rush of April 22, 1889.

Cimarron

1960

Donovan's Reef poster
6.2

After her great aunt's death, a high-society woman arrives on a Hawaiian island in search of the heir - the father she has never met.

Donovan's Reef

1963

The Sea Hawk poster
7.2

Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

The Sea Hawk

1940

The Sea of Grass poster
6.1

On America's frontier, a St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals.

The Sea of Grass

1947

The Rounders poster
5.5

Ben (Glenn Ford) and Marion (Henry Fonda) are two cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer Jim (Chill Wills), who always gets the better of them, talks them into taking a nondescript horse in lieu of some of their wages. Ben finds that the horse is un-rideable, he comes up with the idea of taking it to a rodeo and betting other cowhands they cannot ride it.

The Rounders

1965

Destry poster
6.1

Western remake of "Destry Rides Again", starring Audie Murphy, Mari Blanchard, Thomas Mitchell, Lori Nelson and Lyle Bettger.

Destry

1954

Wichita poster
6.3

Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.

Wichita

1955

Yuma poster
5.9

A down-and-dirty town is forced to shape up when a new marshal (Clint Walker) comes to town. However, when a scheme is launched to destroy the lawman's authority, he must discover the perpetrators and preserve his reputation.

Yuma

1971

Angel in My Pocket poster
6.2

The new minister in a small town faces the challenge of winning over its eccentric citizens.

Angel in My Pocket

1969

Move Over, Darling poster
6.7

Three years into their loving marriage, with two infant daughters at home in Los Angeles, Nicholas Arden and Ellen Wagstaff Arden are on a plane that goes down in the South Pacific. Although most passengers manage to survive the incident, Ellen presumably perishes when swept off her lifeboat, her body never recovered. Fast forward five years. Nicholas, wanting to move on with his life, has Ellen declared legally dead. Part of that moving on includes getting remarried, this time to a young woman named Bianca Steele, who, for their honeymoon, he plans to take to the same Monterrey resort where he and Ellen spent their honeymoon. On that very same day, Ellen is dropped off in Los Angeles by the Navy, who rescued her from the South Pacific island where she was stranded for the past five years. She asks the Navy not to publicize her rescue nor notify Nicholas as she wants to do so herself.

Move Over, Darling

1963

Coroner Creek poster
6.2

A man is bent on taking revenge on those responsible for his fiancée's death.

Coroner Creek

1948

Lust for Gold poster
6.0

A man determined to track down the fabled Arizona gold mine known as The Lost Dutchman has an affair with a married treasure hunter, whose pursuit of the mine has lead her to double-cross her husband.

Lust for Gold

1949