Maxwell Emmett "Pat" Buttram

Maxwell Emmett "Pat" Buttram (June 19, 1915 – January 8, 1994)

He was an actor, known for playing the sidekick of Gene Autry and for playing the character of Mr. Haney in the television series Green Acres. He had a distinctive voice which, in his own words, "never quite made it through puberty". Buttram performed in college plays and on a local radio station, before he became a regular on the National Barn Dance in Chicago, Illinois. He also had his own program on CBS. Buttram went to Hollywood in the 1940s and became a "sidekick" to Roy Rogers. However, since Rogers already had two regulars, Buttram was soon dropped. He was then picked by Gene Autry, recently returned from his World War II service in the Army Air Force, to work with him. Buttram would co-star with Gene Autry in more than 40 films and in over 100 episodes of Autry's television show. Buttram's first Autry film was Strawberry Roan in 1948. In the late 1940s, Buttram joined Autry on his radio show, Melody Ranch and then on television with The Gene Autry Show. During the first television season, Buttram went by "Pat" or "Patrick", with a variety of last names. From the second season forward, he used his own name.

Buttram also played Mr. Eustace Haney in the 1965–1971 CBS television comedy Green Acres. He did voice work for several Disney animated features, playing Napoleon (hound dog) in The Aristocats, the Sheriff of Nottingham (a wolf) in Robin Hood, Luke (muskrat) in The Rescuers, Chief (hunting dog) in The Fox and the Hound, and one of the Toon bullets in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He had a recurring role as the voice of Cactus Jake on Garfield and Friends. One of his last roles was a cameo in Back to the Future Part III. His final voice-over was A Goofy Movie, released a year after his death. Buttram is credited as one of the writers on the Hee Haw television show for two episodes, in 1969 and 1970. Buttram died in 1994 at the age of seventy-eight of renal failure in Los Angeles, California. He is interred at the cemetery at the Maxwell Chapel United Methodist Church in Haleyville, Alabama.