Ancestors of Frank Randolph CADY 12 June 2012 First Generation
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Ancestors of Frank Randolph CADY 12 June 2012 First Generation 1. Frank Randolph CADY1 was born on 8 Sep 1915 in Susanville, Lassen, California.1 He died at home on 8 Jun 2012 at the age of 96 in Wilsonville, Clackamas, Oregon.2 His obituary was published on 11 Jun 2012 in the New York Times in New York City, New York, New York. Frank Cady, a character actor best known for playing the down-home shopkeeper, Sam Drucker, on the popular 1960s sitcoms “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres,” died on Friday at his home in Wilsonville, Ore. He was 96. Catherine Turk, his daughter, confirmed his death. Mr. Cady played Sam Drucker for nearly a decade on the two shows, both set in the fictional town of Hooterville. Mr. Drucker was a bit of a straight man to the colorfully zany folk who populated the series, both on CBS. His general store was the closest thing Hooterville had to a social club, and unlike the shops in neighboring Pixley, Drucker’s extended credit. Mr. Cady’s Sam Drucker also appeared occasionally on a third homespun comedy, “The Beverly Hillbillies.” All three shows were produced by Paul Henning. Critics found the shows simple-minded, but in 1990 Mr. Cady defended “Green Acres,” about a city couple who move to the country. “The only thing I resent is people calling it a corny show,” he told CBS News. “It’s highly sophisticated, and it’s timeless, as I think all the reruns are establishing.” Mr. Cady had an extensive career outside of Drucker’s store. He played the part of Doc Williams on “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet” from 1953 to 1964, appeared on television shows like “Wagon Train” and “Perry Mason,” and acted in films, including “Rear Window” and “Ace in the Hole.” Mr. Cady largely retired in 1977, but he did reprise the role of Sam Drucker in 1990, in the TV movie “Return to Green Acres.” Frank Randolph Cady was born on Sept. 8, 1915, in Susanville, Calif., and graduated from Stanford University’s drama department in 1938. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II and started acting onstage after returning from the war. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a son, Steven; three grandchildren; and three great- grandchildren. His wife, Shirley, whom he married in 1940, died in 2008. Balding, long-necked character actor Frank Cady was a stage actor of long standing when he moved into films in 1947. He was usually cast as a quiet, unassuming small town professional man, most memorably as the long-suffering husband of the grief-stricken alcoholic Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckart) in "The Bad Seed" (1957). A busy television actor, he spent much of the 1950s on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as Ozzie Nelson's neighbor Doc Willard. The "TV Generation" of the 1960s knows Cady best as philosophical storekeeper Sam Drucker on the bucolic sitcoms Petticoat Junction (1963-1970) and Green Acres (1965-1971). Whenever he wanted to briefly escape series television and recharge his theatrical batteries, Frank Cady appeared with the repertory company at the prestigious Mark Taper's Forum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Biography Frank Cady was born and raised in Susanville, California in 1915, and although he appeared in a few 1 12 June 2012 Ancestors of Frank Randolph CADY high school plays, he worked after school and summers on Susanville's leading weekly newspaper, The Lassen (County) Advocate. His ambition was to someday be a great newspaper reporter. But although enrolled primarily in journalism courses at Stanford University, he was asked in his sophomore year to write a skit and a song for his fraternity, which creation became part of the annual student musical show, the Big Game Gaieties. He also appeared in the Gaieties as an actor -- and this turned out to be the end of his newspaper ambitions because the lure of the stage was too strong to resist. Upon graduation in 1938, he launched his career as an actor. (Incidentally, the lead singer in that Gaieties and many other Stanford musicals was Shirley Jones -- the original Shirley Jones, as her friends call her. She and Frank celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary this past June.) Forty years later, he moved out of Los Angeles and out of the business. Almost. Frank's latest acting role, since "retiring" in 1978, is in his old part of Sam Drucker, the storekeeper, in Return to Green Acres, a 2-hour film for TV, which he completed in March of 1990. Between 1963 and 1970 he portrayed that character in 145 episodes of Green Acres, 152 episodes of Petticoat Junction and 11 of The Beverly Hillbillies. He swore his last appearance would be in an After Mash episode in 1984. After that, he was offered two new series (the latest in 1989), but he turned them down and, in doing so, he says, "I guess I may have burned my last bridge to Hollywood." Well - almost. His retirement might have ended in 1983, when he agreed to make a pilot for CBS called Sutters Bay, on which he played the town doctor. For better or worse, the pilot didn't sell. An earlier series with which Frank was associated was The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, in which he played the recurring character of Doc Williams, a neighbor, over a period of 12 years, beginning in 1953. The Beginnings Frank's first appearance as a television actor was on the BBC, London, England, in the winter of 1938. Following his graduation from Stanford in the Speech and Drama Department (now only Drama), he served an apprenticeship at the Westminster Theatre, performing classics by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Molnar and others. Frank was appearing in the production of Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions when the entire production was transported, sets and all, to the Alexander Palace and televised live. He received a one-pound note for his services -- a piece of paper he still has. He appeared in some experimental TV in New York in 1939 and made his West Coast television debut sometime in the 40s doing those terrifying, no-retake live shows, such as CBS's Studio One, Life With Father and others long forgotten. The list of TV credits, piled up through the years, included such oldies as The Alaskans, Broken Arrow, December Bride, O,Susanna, GE Theatre (with a guy named Ronald Reagan), Andy Griffith, Perry Mason, Rawhide, Hawaiian Eye, Guestward Ho, Maverick, The Investigators, Pete and Gladys, The Joey Bishop Show, You Are There, Glynis, Make Room For Daddy, Grindle, Dennis The Menace, The Untouchables, Jane Wyman Theatre, Cheyenne, The Best Years, Sugarfoot, The Virginian, The Deputy, The Real McCoys, Desilu Playhouse, Wagon Train, Hazel, Great Adventures, and some more recent ones such as The Practice, Gunsmoke, and Hawaii Five-O. Just before leaving Hollywood in 1978, he filmed several ABC-TV Weekend Specials, including the 3- part Winged Colt, for which he received an Emmy nomination. Motion Pictures Although he made his first feature film in 1946, Frank points to Zandy's Bride (Warner Brothers 1973), in which he co-starred with Liv Ullman, Gene Hackman and Eileen Heckart, playing 2 Ancestors of Frank Randolph CADY 12 June 2012 Hackman's snarling "Pa", as possibly being the performance he enjoyed the most. The picture was directed by Jan Troell, creator of The Emigrants and The New Land. He also likes the sharply contrasting part he played in The Bad Seed. Other major motion picture credits: Rear Window, The Big Carnival, The Asphalt Jungle, When Worlds Collide (now a sci-fi classic), Hearts of the West, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, the Girl Most Likely and perhaps 20 or 30 other pictures best left undisturbed. Theatre As mentioned earlier, Frank began his acting career at Stanford University where, before graduating, he acted in, wrote for, or directed perhaps 20 or 25 stage productions, readings, etc. From there, he went to an apprenticeship with a repertory company at the Westminster Theatre, London, where he stayed until 1939, appearing in Marco Millions, Troilus and Cressida, Dangerous Corner and The Farewell Supper. A season of summer stock in Brattleboro, Vermont, followed in 1939 and then he returned to Stanford for two years of graduate work, a year as a teaching assistant to Prof. Elizabeth Buckingham in Shakespearean interpretation and he also appeared in many more plays. The academic life was not for Frank and he abandoned plans to teach, taking a job as a radio announcer at KGDM in Stockton and later moving to KYA and subsequently KGO in San Francisco as announcer-newscaster and editor. From 1943 to 1946 he was with the USAAF in England, France and Germany and, with hostilities at an end, was able to appear in The Road To Rome with James and Pamela Mason, in the Wiesbaden Opera House. Following his discharge in 1946 he appeared in two plays in Hollywood, which led directly to a beginning in motion pictures. A season of 8 plays in professional stock at Laguna Beach and more plays in Hollywood, La Jolla and Pasadena, led up to the year 1953 when an appearance in The Square Needle caught the eyes of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and his TV career was launched in earnest. From 1970 to the Present Following the demise of Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, Frank received many offers to play storekeepers. That prospect was not enticing, so he turned the offers down, concentrating his efforts on a few films and work in commercials, particularly a four-year stint as spokesman for Ralston Purina's Fit and Trim dog food, which contract did not end until November of 1980.