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Buddy Ebsen in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

posted a month ago by roger1 (2493)
6 replies | jump to latest

Life is timing for some actors I guess.

And dancers, too. In Buddy Ebsen's case..a male dancer. A "hoofer."

He was famous(I've read) in movies of the 30s as a dancer. Sort of disappeared after WWII service in the 40s.

Had a BIG role -- on Disney's TV show -- as the sidekick to Fess Parker as Davy Crockett.

And then some struggling years.

But came 1961: Blake Edwards hired him for a key part in Breakfast at Tiffany's
And came 1962: Paul Henning hired him for a key part in "The Beverly Hillbillies."

Its a one-two punch. The Beverly Hillbillies was Ebsen's claim to fame -- 274 episodes worth -- but there's ol' Jed himself -- SANS moustache -- showing up in a classy movie and hitting various unsettling notes --we feel sorry for him even as we rather fear him, and somewhat dislike him.

Per the book on the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, director Blake Edwards wanted Buddy Ebsen -- and ONLY Buddy Ebsen -- for this key part in BAT and promised Ebsen "if you play this part, you will get an Oscar nomination."

Didn't happen. No Oscar nom for Ebsen. But he DOES have an impact in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

He is first introduced -- with trademark eerie Henry Mancini thriller music(see: Wait Until Dark, Experiment in Terror, Charade) - as a menace. A possible stalker of Hepburn's Holly Golightly. Or maybe a "mob enforcer" sent to follow her for her dealings with the mobster in prison (played by another 60's TV icon -- Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone.)

"Hero" George Peppard elects to stalk the stalker - more suspense music -- and confronts him on a bench in Central Park.

The suspense falls away into something more emotional. This man KNOWS Holly Golightly, but knows her as someone else "Lulu May." A hillbilly girl from the South.

Peppard tries to figure it out:

Peppard: You her father?
Ebsen: I'm her HUSBAND.

Gut punch. The end of Peppard's romantic hopes? Or something creepier. This guy looks too old to be her husband. She looks to young to have had this husband. And Doc mentions their KIDS.

Soon, Holly must confront her husband and Paul(Peppard) sees the truth for what it is. Doc's a widower. The kids were from his first wife. But he took a near child bride in "Lula May" and likely had sex with her and saddled her with a whole life she didn't really want.

But she has a brother. "Fred." And Ebsen reveals a manipulative, cruel side in threatening "LuluMay" about the need to come back "before Fred has to go back into the Army and who knows what will happen.,"

A little bit of struggle and coming to terms ensues. And Buddy Ebsen -- wackily -- ends up with the second most sad and dramatic rendering of "Moon River" in the movie(other than at the end)...as he boards a Grayhound bus home -- without LuluMay -- and goes back a broken man on a bus that swings past Holly and away.

Its his last line that is the most poignant. He can't believe how thin LuluMay is now. To Paul: "Gee...she should EAT something."

Ebsen seemed a likeable, easy going and funny fellah as Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. Granny got most of the gags, followed by lummox Jethro. Ebsen was the anchor.

But his role in Breakfast at Tiffany's allowed the very tall, rather menacing Ebsen to show "other notes." The only reason he did NOT get an Oscar nom is that there were 5 guys who polled better.

PS. Ebsen was famously cast as The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz(1939) but had to give up the role because he was allergic to the metal paint.

PPS. Ebsen had a life AFTER The Beverly Hillbillies. In the 70's when he played "Barnaby Jones" -- the "Elderly Detective" to play alongside Cannon --"the Fat Detective" on a Quinn Martin production. Turns out that Ebsen was the heartthrob of grandmothers across American and Barbaby Jones lasted the second longest of any QM production (The FBI came in first.) I watched the Barnaby Jones pilot the other day(everything streams) and Ebsen -- out to find the killer of his adult son -- was believably tall, big and tough when needed, and quite cold in his more vengeful line readings. He had something, acting-wise.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a month ago

The Doc/LulaMae subplot in BAT is so creepy without the filmmakers or actors overly leaning into how perverse that relationship really is, the way a more modern film probably would. Doc seems easygoing and thoughtful (the comment about Holly needing to eat more), but there's a possessive undercurrent (the lowkey threat of Fred getting into trouble if Holly doesn't return) that makes him sinister, as you said.

One has to wonder why Doc, if he wanted a maternal figure for his children so badly, why he'd marry a young teenage girl, especially someone as flighty as Holly. But then again, Holly is "a phony," the effervescence an act. Considering how protective Holly is of Fred, maybe Doc thought that concern equaled motherly potential... but even so, surely there were eligible older women in their neck of the woods? Or maybe Doc's just a pervert and he's good at hiding it behind concern for his kids needing a mom.

Holly's attitude towards Doc is interesting too. She's cordial to him and in some ways even affectionate. But she definitely doesn't mind seeing him go on that bus back to Kansas. Then she wants to get drunk-- that child bride stint was hardly some little mistake. It's left scars and trauma.

This dark undercurrent is why I can never dismiss BAT the movie so easily. People disparage it compared to the novel, but there's a melancholy core to the story and I've always felt even its happy final image, with Holly and Paul kissing in the rain, has a desperate hope to it, that maybe these two lost people can make each other happy in spite of their pasts and psychological hang-ups.

[–] roger1 (2493) a month ago

The Doc/LulaMae subplot

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Oops..I called her LuLUMae..but my memory she is weak...

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in BAT is so creepy

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Yeah it is...it indeed seems even CREEPIER today, I think.

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without the filmmakers or actors overly leaning into how perverse that relationship really is, the way a more modern film probably would.

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Yes, we have put a real magnifying glass on age-appropriate relationships (but hey, 69-year old Dennis Quaid has a 30-year old wife -- movie stars are allowed their whims).

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Doc seems easygoing and thoughtful (the comment about Holly needing to eat more),

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He opens with that comment upon seeing Holly -- and the comment seems at once a little bit funny and a LOT sad(the girl has changed on him)...when the comment returns as his last line -- with Ebsen's rather heart-rending reading -- it has great power. And yet...we still don't feel comfortable with him.

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but there's a possessive undercurrent (the lowkey threat of Fred getting into trouble if Holly doesn't return) that makes him sinister, as you said.

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Yeah, he moves rapidly onto using Fred as leverage to MAKE Holly return...not nice at all.

Watching Buddy Ebsen in BAT recently and sensing his slightly "sinister" quality here, I flashed back to an episode of Have Gun Will Travel (Richard Boone's Western hit series) that Ebsen guested on around this same time.

I'm a big fan of Richard Boone in MOVIES, but somebody gave me a set of HGWT episodes and I found Boone actually a bit constrained in the part. The scripts were rather banal. Still, a lot of good guest stars were there -- and Ebsen was surprisingly good -- and creepy and psycho-ish --as a bad guy billed as "a sadistic psychotic killer." His oddball features and syrupy southern voice COULD be twisted into menace. Certainly in that HGWT(where Boone dutifully kills Ebsen dead) and a BIT in BAT.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) a month ago

One has to wonder why Doc, if he wanted a maternal figure for his children so badly, why he'd marry a young teenage girl, especially someone as flighty as Holly.

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I can't remember what state Ebsen and Hepburn hail from in the story -- was it West Virginia? Appalachian territory? -- but we've been taught over the years to understand that impoverished rural communities may allow -- if not require -- a certain amount of "child bride" marriages without societal disapproval. It goes back through history: people married younger, and had babies younger and started familes younger because they DIED younger.

But a man of certain appetites could certainly indulge them with young girls if societal boundaries were not in place.

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But then again, Holly is "a phony," the effervescence an act.

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And she was probably desperate (orphaned?) with Fred to care for and Doc came along and offered all sorts of security. Which STILL wasn't enough, and she fled to the big city and reinvented herself yet again.

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Considering how protective Holly is of Fred, maybe Doc thought that concern equaled motherly potential... but even so, surely there were eligible older women in their neck of the woods? Or maybe Doc's just a pervert and he's good at hiding it behind concern for his kids needing a mom.

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Well, whether or not a pervert, we can figure that Doc liked the idea of a pretty young thing to bear more children as opposed to settling down with another woman of his own mature age(which men NOT so lustful settle for, all the time -- a good cooked meal, clean clothes -- hell, this is sounding pretty SEXIST...but I'm nust saying in that kind of environment.)

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CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) a month ago

Holly's attitude towards Doc is interesting too. She's cordial to him and in some ways even affectionate.

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As with lots of lost loves -- even the ones that WE dumped -- the memories are still there, the yearning for what we liked at one time. Plus, Holly rarely drops her "con" -- she wouldn't want to look scared of Doc or angry at Doc -- especially in front of Paul.

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But she definitely doesn't mind seeing him go on that bus back to Kansas.

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Nope. And she enlists Paul to make sure it happens. (The presence of Paul -- even if not established as Holly's "new man" -- helps keep Doc at bay.)

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Then she wants to get drunk-- that child bride stint was hardly some little mistake. It's left scars and trauma.

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Absolutely. We figure that Holly is haunted either by bad memories or the guilt she feels from running away and leaving Fred behind. The drinking is pretty sad.

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This dark undercurrent is why I can never dismiss BAT the movie so easily. People disparage it compared to the novel, but there's a melancholy core to the story and I've always felt even its happy final image, with Holly and Paul kissing in the rain, has a desperate hope to it, that maybe these two lost people can make each other happy in spite of their pasts and psychological hang-ups.

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Yes to all of that. I don't much think of Breakfast at Tiffany's as "a rollicking romantic comedy." Doris Day would not have made it. I realize now that there is a touch of Hitchocck's dark love story "Marnie," which, too, ends up with the romantic couple together - but they are both very messed up people and a REALLY happy ending isn't necessarily in the cards. And Marnie has a past too -- and LOTS of other names.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) a month ago

You know, in confronting how sad, dark and depressing a lot of Breakfast at Tiffany's really is, I suppose we can understsand why Blake Edwards refused to cut the Mr. Yunioshi parts out. Edwards told his producers the movie NEEDED comedy relief -- and Yunioshi was it.

Sidebar on Mickey Rooney: Dana Carvey was on some sitcom in the 70's with Rooney and would do a mocking impression of Rooney telling his young cast "I was the Number One Star for FIVE YEARS" all the time, or something like that. Funny: so was Burt Reynolds, HE kept saying that , and look how he turned out. (From Deliverance to...Cannonball Run II.)

But Rooney's Number One status REALLY reminded me of today's similar Number One Guy: Tom Cruise. Two Number One stars -- each a bit shorter than usual(especially Rooney), each with a big bright mischievous grin and a LOT of energy. My linking of Cruise to Rooney finally paid off when they posed for a photo together not long before Rooney's death.

I was well aware of Mickey Rooney in the early 60's. Middle-aged Mickey had a certain weird virility to him -- he had a lots of wives (including Ava Gardner.) Around this time, you could find Mickey Rooney not only in the big hit BAT, but in A Mad Mad World(nicedly paired with Buddy Hackett as a comedy team) and a few times on the Hefner/Rat Pack-ish whodunnit "Burke's Law"(on one of them, Mickey DID Dun It and tried to brain the hero cop with a poker.)

On TV, Mickey's scary performance as gangster Baby Face Nelson(1957) made the Million Dollar Movie in the sixties. It was directed by Don "Dirty Harry" Siegel and Rooney is quite violent in it(with a hot moll played by Carolyn Jones, natch.)

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[–] roger1 (2493) a month ago

For my research(heh)I looked up on Youtube that old 1961 or 2 cilp of Mickey Rooney and Jayne Mansfield picking up an Emmy for somebody else(or a Golden Globe, or something.) The gag: short Mickey's head only comes up as high as Jayne's big breasts and his face keeps coming into contact with them. Mickey deadpans embarrassment mixed with pleasure. Jayne works those golden globes -- I was very much reminded of today's focus on the torso of Sydney Sweeney. Capping it off: host Ronald Reagan deadpans: "Andy Hardy Goes to College."

And Mickey Rooney got lots of award nominations and good reviews around this time: he was considered a "good serious actor" at the time.

I mention all of this to put "Mr. Yunioshi" in greater context. Mickey Rooney was a former Number One star, a current very active personality, and a respected actor when he played Yunioshi. It was perhaps more solid casting THEN than it seems NOW.