Beatrice “Bea” Benaderet (April 4, 1906 – October 13, 1968)[1] was an American actress born in New York City and reared in San Francisco, California. She appeared in a wide variety of television work, which included a starring role in the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction and Green Acres as Shady Rest Hotel owner Kate Bradley, supporting roles as Blanche Morton in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and as the original voice of Betty Rubble during the first four seasons of The Flintstones, and in The Beverly Hillbillies as Pearl Bodine. She did a great deal of voice work in Warner Bros. animated cartoons of the 1940s/1950s, most famously as Granny. Benaderets father Samuel was a Turkish Jewish emigrant, and her mother, Margaret (née OKeefe) was Irish-American Benaderet first received notice for her radio work in the 1940s on Fibber McGee & Molly, The Jack Benny Program, My Favorite Husband, The Mel Blanc Show, The Great Gildersleeve, and Amos n Andy. She played Blanche Morton, the next-door neighbor to George Burns and Gracie Allen, on both the radio and television incarnations of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show When Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz decided to develop this program for television in a CBS series called I Love Lucy, Benaderet, who had worked with Ball on My Favorite Husband, was first choice to fill the role of Ethel Mertz, but was ultimately unavailable to accept it since she had already been cast for the fledgling television production of The Burns and Allen Show. Vivian Vance, a relatively unknown character actress and singer, was eventually cast in the part. Benaderet did eventually appear in a guest role on I Love Lucy on January 21, 1952, as Miss Lewis, a love-starved spinster neighbor Benaderet voiced numerous female characters in the Warner Bros. animated shorts of the 1940s, including Granny (the sometimes dimwitted, sometimes assertive owner of Tweety). She performed the voice of Granny until 1955, when she was succeeded by June Foray. Benaderet and her first husband, actor Jim Bannon had two children: Jack, an actor, and Maggie Benaderet was busy during the last decade of her life, starting with a voice role as Betty Rubble in the animated series The Flintstones, which debuted in 1960. The Flintstones reunited Benaderet with her 1940s co-workers Alan Reed (Fred Flintstone) and Mel Blanc (Barney Rubble and Dino). Benaderet received no on-screen credit for her many voice characterizations with Warner Bros., as the studio was bound by Blancs contractual stipulation that no other voice actor receive credit while he was under contract to Warners.[citation needed] Benaderet was considered for the role of Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies by producer Paul Henning, who felt she was too buxom and feminine for the character he envisioned as a frail but caustic spitfire; Irene Ryan was eventually cast. Henning cast Benaderet as middle-aged, widowed Cousin Pearl Bodine (Jethros mother), and she appeared in the pilot, as well as a majority of episodes throughout the series first season. Cousin Pearl and her daughter Jethrine (Max Baer, Jr. in drag) moved into the Clampett mansion in the first season. However, the female Bodines disappeared after Henning cast Benaderet in his next series Petticoat Junction, which premiered in September 1963. She starred as Kate Bradley, owner/operator of the Shady Rest Hotel, a cousin of Pearl Bodine. Petticoat Junction proved an enormous hit in its first season, and remained a top-25 program for several years. Benaderet had done a radio variation of Green Acres with Gale Gordon beginning in 1950 called Granbys Green Acres. Green Acres was a spinoff of Petticoat Junction, with Eva Gabor portraying Benaderets original part, and Benaderet herself appearing in several episodes as her Petticoat Junction character, in order to establish the Hooterville setting (Eddie Albert took Gale Gordons role as the lawyer who moves to the country to become a farmer, Gordon was then occupied with his role as Mr. Mooney on The Lucy Show). Benaderet was diagnosed with cancer in 1967, which led to her departure from Petticoat Junction in what was hoped would be a temporary absence. On October 13, 1968, Benaderet died in Los Angeles, California, aged 62 at the Good Samaritan Hospital from lung cancer and pneumonia. She was survived by her second husband, and her two children. She was entombed in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Her second husband Eugene Twombly died of a heart attack on the day of her funeral (four days after her death), and was interred beside her. Twombly had been a sound-effects artist for a number of radio and television shows. Notorious (1946) On the Town (1949) The First Time (1952) Black Widow (1954) Plunderers of Painted Flats (1959) Tender Is the Night (1962)
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 18:47:52 +0000
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