May 26 - Sam Edwards

Image courtesy littlehouse.fandom.com

On this day, in 1915, Sam Edwards was born in Macon, Georgia. Sam’s parents had met as performers on the vaudeville circuit, so it’s no surprise that his first appearance on stage was as a baby in his mother’s arms in a show called Tess of the Storm Country (a 1914 film version starred Mary Pickford). Shortly after Sam’s birth, his parent’s marriage ended in divorce and Sam, with his older sister Florida (care to guess where she was born?) stayed with their mother, Edna. He would never know who his birth father was until a chance meeting in Hollywood over thirty years later. Edna married another actor in 1917, Jack Edwards, and they would soon add a third child to the family, Jack Jr.

The Edwards relocated themselves to the Jacksonville, Florida area, started their own theater troupe and travelled around the country performing in all kinds of plays. Sometimes the kids would be cast alongside mom and dad, but not always comfortably. Sam recalled the first time he could remember being on stage, in Why Men Leave Home, as his mother’s daughter (he wasn’t apparently a very convincing actor at that age; he said most of the audience could tell he was a boy in spite of the lacy underwear that was part of his costume).

Image courtesy perfesserbill.com

As the Edwards children grew, the family transitioned from the stage into radio. Now based mostly in San Antonio, Texas, Jack managed a movie theater, interspersing the new fangled medium of moving pictures with short live performances done by Edna and the kids. As he moved into his teens, Sam began participating in and winning local singing contests. Jack Sr. and Edna were already performing on WOAI, one of the first radio stations in Texas, when they began producing a show starring Sam and Jack Jr. In 1933, The Adventures of Sonny and Buddy became one of the first weekly serials to ever be broadcast. Sam would enjoy a long, prolific career on the airwaves. His whole family appeared as a fictionalized version of themselves on The Edwards Family. He was part of an early soap opera, One Man's Family, and an early kid's adventure show, Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police. Over the couple of decades that radio reigned supreme, Sam had recurring roles on Father Knows Best, Guiding Light, Meet Corliss Archer, The First Hundred Years, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, This is Your FBI and several others.

Image courtesy imdb.com

Sam broke into movies almost by accident. In 1937, He tagged along with his brother to the set of a movie Jake was in, intending to be an extra, mostly for fun. His radio expertise, however, not only got him noticed but also got him a speaking part in High Hat. While never becoming a movie star, Sam would occasionally appear in films for the next four and a half decades. He had significant parts in Twelve O'Clock High with Gregory Peck, Operation Pacific with John Wayne and The Beatniks (which was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000). His final film role came in 1981 as a Ticket Clerk in the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange.

When radio transitioned into television, Sam transformed himself as well. While he would never have a starring role like he did before, he would start appearing on the small screen in the mid Fifties and add more than 60 different series to his resume over the years. He is probably most remembered as Bill Anderson, the banker on Little House on the Prairie, but he had recurring roles on Dragnet and Gunsmoke (hold overs from his radio days) and guest shots on everything from The Andy Griffith Show to Mission: Impossible to Happy Days. He even, in another throwback to his earlier career, had a stint on Days of Our Lives. 

Image copyright Disney

Sam joined the Disney family pretty early in both his career and the history of features at the studio. In the 1942 classic Bambi, he brought the adult part of Thumper to twitterpated life. A great deal of his work for Disney came through Disneyland Records. He played both the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Woodman for a series of Wizard of Oz albums. He played Tigger, Rabbit and Owl on a whole bunch of Winnie the Pooh records. He also served as the narrator for many of the Disneyland Storyteller series. Throughout the Seventies, he appeared in a string of live action films for the company, including Escape to Witch Mountain, The Biscuit Eater and two episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Hog Wild and The Flight of the Grey Wolf. His final 'appearance' for the company was as the voice of Ollie Owl opposite Burl Ives' Sam the Eagle in the patriotic Disneyland attraction America Sings, that ran from 1974 until 1988.

Image courtesy youtube.com

In the early Eighties, Sam retired from acting, mostly. He did some traveling around with his wife of three decades to old time radio conventions, meeting up with old friends and often giving live readings of favorite episodes from back in the day. But mostly he spent time with his family enjoying life. In 1992, he had bypass surgery, recovered nicely and spent another twelve years living peacefully in Durango, Colorado. Then, on July 28, 2004, three days after suffering a heart attack that revealed a hole in his heart, Sam passed away, surrounded by family. He was 89.