Dabbs Greer, the friendly, rustic character actor with the slight Southern drawl that endeared him to so many television viewers as a small town reverend on two hit shows: Little House on the Prairie and Picket Pences, died in Pasedena, California on April 28 of kidney and heart failure. He was 90.

He was born Robert William Greer on April 2, 1917, in Fairview, Missouri. He began acting in grade school, focusing on it all the way through his dramatic studies at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where he earned a B.A. in Theater in 1939. He relocated to Pasedena, California in 1943, (where he would remain a resident until his death) and took a job as a drama instructor at the acclaimed Pasadena Playhouse. While direcing and acting in plays there, he was convinced him to strike out on his own and concentrate on acting professionally.

He changed his name to Dabbs (his mother's maiden name) and began acquiring a series of small roles in some good pictures: The Damned Don't Cry (1950), Father's Little Dividend (1951), Monkey Business (1952) before scoring his first credited part, that of Frank Lovejoy's inquisitive police assistant in Andre De Toth's classic 3-D scarefest House of Wax (1953). After that, the material he was given became more cheeky and varied: Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), The Seven Little Foys (1955), the ill-fated Mac Lomax in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Baby Face Nelson (1957), and a memorable bit as a prison employee overlooking Susan Hayward in I Want to Live! (1958).

Yes, Greer's film resume was respectable, but it would be television that became his mainstay simply because his genial, downhome personality and delivery made him a natural for TV westerns. Here is a mere sample of some the programs he appeared in: Rawhide, Wagon Train, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Virginian, Cimarron Strip, Bonanza, and innumerable guest appearances on Gunsmoke during that show's long run.

In the meanwhile, he earned roles in some prominent films with some notable performers : James Stewart in Shenandoah (1965), Stewart again in The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), and Burt Reynolds for White Lightning (1973). His first semi-regular series gig was as Norrie Cooldige, the town constable of a small New England village in the short-lived but charming Hope Lange sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (1968-69). Then he struck paydirt when he spent 10 seasons as Reverend Robert Alden in Little House on the Prairie (1974-84) and proved his versatility playing a far more acrebic Reverend Henry Novotny in David Kelly's Picket Fences (1992-96).

Interestingly, it wasn't until he was in his '80s when he took over Tom Hank's role (via as an older incarnation) as a prison guard in the Green Mile (1999) that he achieved his most notable movie part and received some of the best critical notices of his career. His last run on television would be the crusty but lovable Grandpa Fred in the hit children's show Lizzie McGuire (2001-02). Greer never married and had no known survivors.

by Michael T. Toole