Tom Lester Dead: ‘Green Acres’ Actor Dies at 81

Tom Lester, best known for playing Eb Dawson on Green Acres, died on April 20 from complications related to Parkinson’s Disease. He was 81.

According to TMZ, the actor was in Nashville, at this home of his fiancée and longtime caregiver, when he passed.

He Graduated From the University of Mississippi

Lester was born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi.

He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1960 with a degree in chemistry and biology before packing his things and moving to Los Angeles. At the time, he had no acting experience.

MeTV quotes Lester as saying, “I might not make it, but at least I’m going to try. And I would’ve rather gone out there and tried and failed then to never have gone out there at all. And I read an article once where they asked Don Knotts who was Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, ‘How in the world did you ever get into movies?’ Because he didn’t look anything at all like Rock Hudson. And he said, ‘I figured everybody in Hollywood was good-looking and had a good physique. I figured they needed somebody a little bit different.’”

It took Lester less than three years to book the role of Eb Dawson on the CBS comedy Green Acres, which ran from 1965 to 1971. A number of rumors inside he beat out 400 actors for the role.

According to American Profile, friends and family never thought he’d become a successful actor.

Lester once told the outlet, “They said, ‘You are too tall, too skinny, too ugly, you have a Southern accent and you don’t look like Rock Hudson.’”

Lester was known to be a humble man, and despite his Green Acres fame, he lived in an apartment above a garage in the San Fernando Valley.

He Was a Farmer & Christian Speaker in His Later Years

After Green Acres, Lester pivoted to focus on his faith, speaking in local churches each weekend. He still continued his work as an actor, and landed roles in projects like Perry Mason, Leave It to Beaver, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murder, She Wrote, The Munsters, and a number of Westerns.

He told American Profile, “I couldn’t go into a church and share my faith and be in a movie downtown that people in the church wouldn’t see because of the subject matter or language.”

Along with preaching his faith in his later years, he worked as a farmer on his family’s farm.

In 1997, he was the recipient of Mississippi’s “Wildlife Farmer of the Year” award.

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