Dabbs Greer, a character actor who was often cast as television’s everyman, and who was best known for playing Rev. Robert Alden on “Little House on the Prairie,” has died. He was 90.
Mr. Greer, who had been battling kidney and heart disease, died Saturday in Pasadena, said his neighbor Bill Klukken.
His career spanned more than a half-century and included appearances in almost 100 films and about 600 television episodes.
In addition to running the Walnut Grove church on “Little House,” which aired from 1974 to 1983, Mr. Greer had recurring TV roles as storekeeper Mr. Jonus on “Gunsmoke” from 1955 to 1960; a coach on “Hank” in the mid-1960s; a minister on “Picket Fences” in the 1990s; and a grumpy grandfather on “Maybe It’s Me” from 2001-2002.
On “The Adventures of Superman,” he dangled from a dirigible and appeared to be rescued mid-air by the Man of Steel in the 1952 pilot episode. He also was the minister who married Mike and Carol Brady in 1969 on “The Brady Bunch.”
He debuted on the big screen in 1949 in an uncredited part in “Reign of Terror” and had small parts in films throughout much of the 1950s.
In his final film, “The Green Mile” (1999), Mr. Greer — then 82 — took over the role of prison guard Paul Edgecomb when the character became too old for Tom Hanks to play realistically. Previously, Mr. Greer had been a prison guard opposite Susan Hayward in her Oscar-winning role in 1958’s “I Want to Live!”
He was born Robert William Greer on April 2, 1917, in Fairview, Mo., to a druggist and his wife, who taught elocution. An only child, he grew up in Anderson, Mo., and at 8 began acting in children’s stage productions.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in 1939 from what is now Drury University in Springfield, Mo., Mr. Greer headed a Missouri school system’s speech and drama department, Klukken said.
In 1943, he moved to Pasadena, where he lived the rest of his life. He never married and has no survivors.
He became an administrator and teacher at the Pasadena Playhouse theater school, often acting opposite students and directing more than 50 plays. Professionally, he started using Dabbs — his mother’s maiden name — as his first name.
Mr. Greer left the playhouse in 1950 to pursue acting full-time and began playing a series of small-town good guys, whose personalities were not far from his own, Klukken said.
Of a career built mainly on supporting parts, Mr. Greer told the Albany, N.Y., Times Union in 2000: “Every character actor, in their own little sphere, is the lead.”
