Tom Lester, the gawky Mississippi native who starred as the friendly Hooterville farmhand Eb Dawson on the madcap CBS sitcomGreen Acres, has died.
He was 81. Dawson died Monday of complications from Parkinson's disease in the Nashville home of his fiancee and long-term caregiver, Jackie Peters, his family announced.
Inspired byAndy Griffith Showstar Don Knotts — who like Lester did not come off as your typical leading man — Lester pursued a career as an actor after earning degrees in chemistry and biology from the University of Mississippi en route to becoming a doctor.
His friends told him, "'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.
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