Green Acres star Tom Lester dies at 81

The Hollywood Reporter

The gawky Mississippi native, who died Monday of complications from Parkinson's disease, starred as the friendly Hooterville farmhand Eb Dawson on the 1965-1971 CBS sitcom. Lester originally planned to become a doctor, but found his way to Hollywood after finding inspiration in The Andy Griffith Show's Don Knotts. "'You’re crazy. You’ll never be able to do that,'" he recalled in an undated interview. "'You're too tall, too skinny, too ugly," he said in a past interview. "You've got a Southern accent and you'll never make it in the motion picture business. You don't look like Rock Hudson.'" Lester was supposed to appear in a couple of episodes, but producers liked him enough and he proved to be funny that he was kept around. Eb also appeared on Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies, and was believed to have been the last surviving Green Acres cast member.