EDDIE ALBERT

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  Anybody my age will remember Eddie Albert as the character Oliver Wendell Douglas in the popular television show Green Acres. He was born Eddie Albert Heimberger in 1906 and died at the age of 99 in 2005. He was taunted by his schoolmates in World War I for having a German sounding last name. He tried a business career but failed in that because of the stock market crash of 1929. After this he got into acting on Broadway, the movies and the very early television programs. Before World War II he performed in a Circus Act in Mexico but was really a spy working for the U.S. Army. He took pictures of German U Boats in Mexican waters. On September 9, 1942 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve. During the brutal Pacific battle of Tarawa in November 1943 he helped rescue 46 wounded Marines with his boat while under heavy Japanese fire. Forty-two of these men survived earning Albert the Bronze Star with a V for Valor
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