Elmer Calvin "Hank" Patterson (October 9, 1888 – August 23, 1975) was an American actor and musician. He is known foremost for playing two recurring characters on three television series - stableman Hank Miller on Gunsmoke and farmer Fred Ziffel on both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.
Early life
Patterson was born in Springville, Alabama, one of seven children of Green Davis Patterson, an insurance agent, and Mary Isabell "Mollie" Newton Patterson. By the 1890s, his family had moved to Taylor, Texas, where he spent most of his boyhood and attended school through eighth grade. In 1917, he was registered for World War I in Lubbock County, Texas.
Patterson had intended to be a serious pianist, but instead became a vaudeville piano player. By the end of the 1920s, he moved to California. He entered the movie business as an actor during the 1930s. His earliest identified screen work was an uncredited appearance in the Roy Rogers' Western film The Arizona Kid (1939).
In 1963, Patterson first appeared in what became a recurring role as farmer Fred Ziffel on the CBS rural comedy Petticoat Junction. In 1965, CBS debuted another rural comedy, Green Acres. Both series were set in the mythical farming community of Hooterville, with characters from Petticoat Junction often also appearing in Green Acres, including Patterson's Fred Ziffel character. On Green Acres, Patterson earned his greatest fame. In 1965 and 1966—two of the years in which the two series ran concurrently—Patterson frequently appeared in both shows in the same week in prime time.
The association of Patterson's character with Arnold, the pet pig that Fred and his wife Doris treated as a son, ensured Patterson a place in television history. Arnold attended school and watched TV, and was a talented artist, piano player, and actor. He even "talked" (snorted, grunted, and squealed) in a language that everyone in Hooterville seemed to understand except Oliver Wendell Douglas (Green Acres co-star Eddie Albert).
According to westernclippings.com "Characters and Heavies" by Boyd Magers, "Ironically, by the time Patterson was doing Green Acres, he was in his late 70s and almost completely deaf, but the producers loved his portrayal so much they worked around his hearing impairment by having the dialogue coach lying on the floor out-of-shot tapping Hank's leg with a yardstick as a cue to speak his line."
Personal life
Hank Patterson was married to Daisy Marguerite (Sheeler) Patterson, a Kentucky native four years younger than Hank whose parents were both of German ancestry. They are listed together in the U.S. Census for both 1930 and 1940 as residing in Los Angeles. In the 1940 census, Hank's occupation is listed as "Actor, Motion Picture Studio & Stage."
Patterson's great-grandfather, James Pearson, was an original settler of St. Clair County, Alabama, as was his mother's great-grandfather, Thomas Newton. His great-grandfather, Henry S. Patterson, moved to Blount County, Alabama, around 1857 from Murray County, Georgia. Between 1894 and 1897, the family left Alabama to live in Texas.
Hank Patterson died at age 86 on August 23, 1975 of bronchial pneumonia. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood. Daisy died, also at age 86, on February 2, 1979.
