LA, July 08: Buddy Ebsen, the lanky, folksy actor best known for TV roles as backwoods millionaire Jed Clampett on "The Beverly Hillbillies" and as a canny elder sleuth on "Barnaby Jones," has died at a Los Angeles-area hospital at age 95, a hospital spokeswoman said on Monday. Ebsen, who was placed in intensive care last month suffering from an undisclosed illness, died on Sunday morning at the Torrance Memorial Medical Center, the spokeswoman said. A statement from Ebsen's family said his wife, Dorothy, his children and grandchildren were by his side.
Beginning his career on the vaudeville circuit in the 1920s as a dancer paired with his sister, Vilma, the tall, gangly Ebsen appeared in one of the last editions of the "Ziegfeld Follies," performed on Broadway and starred in a number of MGM musicals.
He danced in "Captain January" with Shirley Temple, received his first on-screen kiss from Barbara Stanwyck, played Audrey Hepburn's husband in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and co-starred with Gregory Peck in the Cold War thriller "Night People."

Ebsen's film career was just as notable for one of the most famous roles a Hollywood actor ever lost -- the part of the Tin Man in the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz." Ebsen filmed several sequences before an allergy to metallic dust in the character's body paint landed him in the hospital for two weeks, and the role was given to Jack Haley.
But Ebsen became forever linked to a generation of television viewers for his role as patriarch of the zany Clampett clan on the hit fish-out-of-water sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies," which debuted on CBS in 1962.
Bureau Report