Echoes in Eternity

I just learned that Dabbs Greer, the relatively obscure but wonderful character actor best-known for his role as Rev. Alden on Little House on the Prairie, died this past Saturday at the age of 90. The timing is personally interesting, since I happened to mention that very actor to a friend of mine that same day. Then I find out that he passed away within hours of my reference to him. Anyway, more recently Mr. Greer played the aged Paul Edgecomb character in the 1999 film The Green Mile. He was born on April 2, 1917 in Missouri, the only child of a pharmacist father and a speech therapist mother. He majored in theatre at Drury College and after running its drama department for a few years, he pursued a career in acting. His first claim to fame is that he was the first person ever rescued by Superman on screen. From 1950 to 1970, he was a regular guest star on many hit television shows, including Gunsmoke, Adventures of Superman, The Rifleman, Perry Mason, Bonanza, and The Brady Bunch. However, it was in 1974 when he finally found the long-running TV role for which he would become known by most Americans. He starred in all nine seasons of Little House on the Prairie as the aforementioned Reverend Robert Alden. After that, he mostly disappeared from acting, making a guest appearance about once a year on a TV show or movie until 2003. He never married and had no children and thus, since he was an only child, appears likely to have no living family to remember him. Unfortunately, his memory will only live on in the minds of Little House fans. One interesting note: his will stipulates that he be buried in a Dracula costume.