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The AP is reporting that Buddy Ebsen, the lanky hoofer who gained his greatest fame on television in The Beverly Hillbillies and Barnaby Jones, has passed away from undisclosed illnesses at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in California. Ebsen was 95. Ebsen started his career in entertainment as a dancer with his sister, Vilma Ebsen, in movies, but he is remembered for the rural characters he played on TV. Ebsen was also originally cast as The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz but the aluminum powder applied to his skin was toxic and made him ill; he was replaced by Jack Haley. Ebsen would have to wait for fame another fourteen years, when he became known to children and their parents as George Russell, the amiable, common-sense pal of Fess Parker's Davy Crockett. Crockett, which was shown on Walt Disney's "Disneyland" series, was a cultural phenomenon in the '50s, causing a coonskin cap fashion craze. Ebsen's most popular series, however, was The Beverly Hillbillies, playing Jed Clampett, the not-so-dumb patriarch of a clan of Ozark bumpkins whose nouveau riche status lands them squarely in the middle of a posh Californian mansion. The show survived for nine years with several episodes enjoying record viewership (the episode where Granny fought a kangaroo she believed was a giant jack-rabbit remains one of the most viewed half-hour programs of all time). Ebsen then went on to play the slow-but-sure private investigator Barnaby Jones in the show of the same name. Jones was a surprise hit and was on the air for seven years. Ebsen also brought a sad compassion to his role of Doc, Holly Golightly's skeleton-in-the-closet husband in Breakfast at Tiffany's (it was this sympathetic role that reportedly landed him the lead as Jed Clampett). Ebsen was married twice and had seven children; six daughters and one son. --Prepared by IMDb staff...