Edward Albert Heimberger (April 22, 1906 – May 26, 2005) was an American actor. He is known for his roles on stage and screen and received nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Edward Albert Heimberger was born in Rock Island, Illinois, on April 22, 1906, the eldest of the five children of Frank Daniel Heimberger, a real estate agent, and his wife, Julia Jones.[citation needed] His year of birth is often given as 1908, but this is incorrect. His parents were not married when Albert was born, and his mother altered his birth certificate after her marriage.[2]
When he was one year old, his family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Young Edward secured his first job as a newspaper boy when he was only six. During World War I, his German surname led to taunts as "the enemy" by his classmates. He studied at Central High School in Minneapolis and joined the drama club. His schoolmate Harriet Lake (later known as actress Ann Sothern) graduated in the same class. Finishing high school in 1926,[3] he entered the University of Minnesota, where he majored in business.[citation needed] When he graduated, Albert embarked on a business career. However, the stock market crash in 1929 left him essentially unemployed. He then took odd jobs, working as a trapeze performer, an insurance salesman, and a nightclub singer. Albert stopped using his last name professionally because it invariably was mispronounced as "Hamburger".[citation needed]
Career
1933–1949: Early roles and military
Albert and Grace Bradt applying makeup for their first early experimental TV appearance in November 1936
He moved to New York City in 1933, where he co-hosted a radio show, The Honeymooners – Grace and Eddie Show, which ran for three years. At the show's end, he was offered a film contract by Warner Bros.[4] In the 1930s, Albert performed in Broadway stage productions, including Brother Rat, which opened in 1936. He had lead roles in Room Service (1937–1938) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938–1939). In 1936, Albert had also become one of the earliest television actors, performing live in one of RCA's first television broadcasts in association with NBC, a promotion for their New York City radio stations.[4]
Performing regularly on early television, Albert wrote and performed in the first teleplay, titled The Love Nest, written for television. Done live (not recorded on film), this production took place November 6, 1936 and originated in Studio 3H (now 3K) in the GE Building at Rockefeller Center (then called the RCA Building) in New York City and was broadcast over NBC's experimental television station W2XBS (now WNBC-TV). Hosted by Betty Goodwin, The Love Nest starred Albert, Hildegarde, The Ink Spots, Ed Wynn, and actress Grace Bradt. Before this time, television productions were adaptations of stage plays.[5] Albert landed the starring role in the 1938 Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse, and met Burl Ives, who had a small role in the play. The two later briefly shared an apartment in the Beachwood Canyon community of Hollywood after Ives moved west the following year. Also in 1938, Albert made his feature-film debut in the Hollywood version of Brother Rat with Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, reprising his Broadway role as cadet "Bing" Edwards. The next year, he starred in On Your Toes, adapted for the screen from the Broadway smash by Rodgers and Hart.[6]
In his first TV series,[8] Albert portrayed Larry Tucker on the situation comedy Leave It to Larry, which ran from October 14, 1952, until December 23, 1952, on CBS. Tucker was a married man who encountered his father-in-law at work and at home.[9] Albert had his own daytime variety program, The Eddie Albert Show, on CBS television in 1953. Singer Ellen Hanley was a regular on the show. A review in Broadcasting magazine panned the program, writing "Mr. Albert, with the help of Miss Hanley, conducts an interview, talks a little, sings a little, and looks all-thumbs a lot."[10] Beginning June 12, 1954, Albert was host of Saturday Night Revue, which replaced Your Show of Shows on NBC. The 9:00–10:30 pm (Eastern Time) program also featured Ben Blue and Alan Young and the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra.[11]
The 1950s also had a return to Broadway for Albert, including roles in Miss Liberty (1949–1950) and The Seven Year Itch (1952–1955).
In 1959, Albert was cast as businessman Dan Simpson in the episode "The Unwilling" of the series Riverboat. In the story, Dan Simpson attempts to open a general store in the American West despite a raid from pirates on the Mississippi River, who stole from him $20,000 in merchandise. Debra Paget is cast in this episode as Lela Russell; Russell Johnson is Darius, and John M. Picard is uncredited as a river pirate. He guest-starred on various series, including ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and the Westinghouse Studio One series (CBS, 1953–54), playing Winston Smith in the first TV adaptation of 1984, by William Templeton.[citation needed]
In the 1950s, Albert appeared in film roles such as that of Lucille Ball's fiancé in The Fuller Brush Girl (1950), Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises (1957), and a traveling salesman in Carrie (1952). He was nominated for his first Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor with Roman Holiday (1953). In Oklahoma! (1955), he played a womanizing Persian peddler, and in Who's Got the Action? (1962), he portrayed a lawyer helping his partner (Dean Martin) cope with a gambling addiction. In Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he played a psychiatrist with an enthusiasm for farming. He appeared in several military roles, including The Longest Day (1962), about the Normandy invasion. The film Attack (1956) provided Albert with a dark role as a cowardly, psychotic Army captain whose behavior threatens the safety of his company. In a similar vein, he played a psychotic United States Army Air Force colonel in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), with Gregory Peck. Albert acted in the 1956 special Our Mr. Sun opposite Dr. Frank Baxter directed by Frank Capra.[12]
In 1960, Albert replaced Robert Preston in the lead role of Professor Harold Hill, in the Broadway production of The Music Man. Albert also performed in regional theater. He created the title role of Marc Blitzstein's Reuben, Reuben in 1955 in Boston. He performed at The Muny Theater in St. Louis, Missouri, reprising the Harold Hill role in The Music Man in 1966 and playing Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady in 1968. In 1962, Albert appeared as Cal Kroeger on the TV Western The Virginian in the episode titled "Impasse". In 1964, Albert guest-starred in "Cry of Silence", an episode of the science-fiction television series The Outer Limits. Albert played Andy Thorne, who along with his wife Karen (played by June Havoc), had decided to leave the city and buy a farm (a recurring theme in Albert's career). They find themselves lost and in the middle of a deserted valley, where they come under attack by a series of tumbleweeds, frogs, and rocks. Also in 1964, he guest-starred as a government agent in the pilot episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea titled "Eleven Days to Zero". Albert appeared as Taylor Dickson, a western photographer in season seven, episode 11 as “The Photographer” in Rawhide, alongside Clint Eastwood (Rowdy Yates) aired December 11, 1964.
Albert was cast as Charlie O'Rourke in the 1964 episode "Visions of Sugar Plums" of the NBC education drama series, Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus. Bobby Diamond, formerly of the Fury series, also appeared in this episode. In 1965, Albert was approached by producer Paul Henning to star in a sitcom for CBS titled Green Acres. His character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, was a lawyer who left the city to enjoy a simple life as a gentleman farmer. Co-starring on the show was Eva Gabor as his wife Lisa. The show was an immediate hit, achieving fifth place in the ratings in its first season. The series lasted six seasons with 170 episodes. In 1968, Albert was a guest on The Carol Burnett Show episode six. He played Harvey Korman's boss in an episode of "Carol and Sis", and sang.
1970–1995: Established actor
After a four-year absence from the small screen, and upon reaching age 69 in 1975, Albert signed a new contract with Universal Television, and starred in the popular 1970s series Switch for CBS as a retired police officer, Frank McBride, who goes to work as a private detective with a former criminal he had once jailed. In its first season, Switch was a hit. By late 1976, the show had become a more serious and traditional crime drama. At the end of its third season in 1978, ratings began to drop, and the show was cancelled after 70 episodes. In 1965, the year that Green Acres premiered, Albert served as host/narrator for the telecast of a German-American made-for-television film version of The Nutcracker, which was rerun several times. The host sequences and the narration were especially filmed for English-language telecasts of this short film (it was only an hour in length, and cut much from the Tchaikovsky ballet).[citation needed] In 1968, he voiced Myles Standish in the Rankin/Bass animated TV special The Mouse on the Mayflower. [citation needed]
In 1971, Albert guest-starred in a season-one Columbo episode titled "Dead Weight" as a highly decorated retired US Marine Corps major general, and combat war hero from the Korean War, who murders his adjutant to cover up an illegal contracting conspiracy scheme. In 1972, Albert resumed his film career and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as an overprotective father in The Heartbreak Kid (1972), and delivered a memorable performance as an evil prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. In a lighter vein, Albert portrayed the gruff though soft-hearted Jason O'Day in the successful Disney film Escape to Witch Mountain in 1975.
Eddie Albert's wife, Mexican actress Margo, was well known in Hollywood for her left-wing political leanings,[14] but she was not a member of the Communist Party.[15] In 1950, Margo and Albert's names were both published in "Red Channels", an anti-Communist pamphlet that sought to expose purported Communist influence within the entertainment industry.[16][17] This was part of a larger trend of blacklisting motion-picture professionals whose known or suspected Communist leanings, unless they testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee to disavow any Communist affiliations.[17]
Albert's son spoke of his parents' blacklisting in an interview published in December 1972, crediting Albert's military service during World War II with ultimately saving his career:
My mom was blacklisted for appearing at an anti-Franco rally; she was branded a Communist, was spat upon in the streets, and had to have a bodyguard. And my dad found himself unemployable at several major studios, just when his career was gathering momentum. During the Second World War, dad joined the Navy and saw action at Tarawa, and because he came back something of a hero, he was able to get work again, but he never got as far as he should have gotten.[18]
Albert later spoke of this period: "Everyone was so full of fear. Many people couldn't support their families, or worse, their lives were ruined and they had to go out and do menial jobs. Some even killed themselves."[19] While Albert's career survived the blacklist, his wife, Margo, had extreme difficulty finding work.[19]
Albert married Mexican actress Margo (née María Margarita Guadalupe Teresa Estela Bolado Castilla y O'Donnell) in 1945. Albert and Margo had a son, Edward Jr., also an actor, and adopted a daughter, Maria, who became her father's business manager. Margo Albert died from brain cancer on July 17, 1985. The Alberts lived in Pacific Palisades, California in a Spanish-style house on an acre of land with a cornfield in front. Albert grew organic vegetables in a greenhouse and recalled how his parents had a liberty garden at home during World War I.
Albert's son, Edward Jr. (1951–2006), was an actor, musician, singer, and linguist/dialectician.[20] Edward Jr. died at age 55, one year after his father. He had been suffering from lung cancer for 18 months.[citation needed]
Activism and interests
Albert was active in social and environmental causes, especially from the 1970s onward.
In 1970, Albert participated in the creation of Earth Day and spoke at one of its events in that year.[21]
Albert founded the Eddie Albert World Trees Foundation and was national chairman for the Boy Scouts of America's conservation program. He was a trustee of the National Recreation and Park Association and a member of the U.S. Department of Energy's advisory board. TV Guide called him "an ecological Paul Revere".[22]
He was special envoy for Meals for Millions and consultant for the World Hunger Conference.[21] He joined Albert Schweitzer in a documentary about African malnutrition.[23][24] and fought agricultural and industrial pollution, particularly DDT.[21] Albert promoted organic gardening, and founded City Children's Farms for inner-city children,[25] while supporting eco-farming and tree planting.[26]
Albert was also a director of the U.S. Council on Refugees.[27][28]
Beginning in the 1940s, Eddie Albert Productions produced films for various US corporations, as well as documentaries such as Human Beginnings (a for-its-time controversial sex-education film) and Human Growth.[29]
In 1971 he starred in an industrial film sponsored and promoted by a major logging and forest products concern called Weyerhaeuser Company.[30][31] which emphasized the Pacific Northwest. Shot partly amid old growth timber and narrated solely by Albert, the film documented industrial methods of handling such trees for market. It also shows re-planted clear cuts and emphasized "the need for advanced lumber production in response to rapidly increasing population," according to the Texas Archive of the Moving Image.[32]
Illness and death
Albert's grave
Albert was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1995.[22][4][33] His son put aside his acting career to care for his father. Albert exercised regularly until shortly before his death. Eddie Albert died of pneumonia on May 26, 2005, at the age of 99 in his home in Pacific Palisades, California.[1] He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, next to his late wife and near his Green Acres co-star Eva Gabor.[citation needed] For contributions to the television industry, Eddie Albert was honored on February 8, 1960, with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6441 Hollywood Boulevard.[34]
^"Edward Albert" profile Internet Accuracy Project. "Edward Albert was also a photographer, sculptor, singer/songwriter, musician (guitar), and a linguist/dialectician who was fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese."
^ abcCongressional Record, July 18, 2005, Section 22
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