Hank Patterson

A pig named Arnold may have been his best-known costar, but it was just one aspect of a career Hank Patterson cobbled together that featured him in plenty of roles playing gruff and cantankerous rural characters. Tthe Alabama native moved to Texas with his family when he was still a kid. Patterson took to the road as a vaudeville pianist playing in traveling revues, eventually working his way out to California in the 1920s. He made his first film appearance in an uncredited role as a townsman in the 1939 Roy Rogers oater, "The Arizona Kid." For much of the 1940s, Patterson appeared in numerous westerns playing mostly uncredited townspeople roles. Among the few credited parts he won were in B-movies like 1946's "The El Paso Kid" and the 1949 Gene Autry vehicle, "The Cowboy and the Indians." Patterson fared far better on television, where westerns continued to be his bread and butter. While he had plenty of one-off shots on programs like "Wagon Train," "Bonanza," and "Johnny Ringo," he did have a number of notable recurring roles that included his playing an elderly bounty hunter in 1958's "Have Gun-Will Travel" and stableman Hank Miller, a character he portrayed for 11 years on "Gunsmoke." Farmer Fred Ziffel was his best-known role, a part he played on "Petticoat Junction," "The Beverly Hillbillies," and "Green Acres." Hank Patterson died from bronchial pneumonia in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 86.