Don DeFore

Donald John DeFore was born on August 25, 1913, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of seven children of Joseph Ervin DeFore, a railroad engineer for the Chicago and North Western Railroad and a local politician, and Albina Sylvia DeFore, née Nezerka, whose parents were Czech immigrants. Albina occasionally directed plays at their local church. DeFore graduated from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids before enrolling at the University of Iowa, where he studied law and competed in basketball, track, and baseball. His interest shifted to acting, and because the university did not offer it as a major field of study, he left to attend the Pasadena Community Playhouse on a scholarship, remaining there for three years.

While at the Playhouse, DeFore and four fellow students collaborated on an original play titled Where Do We Go from Here?, which was staged at a small Hollywood theater with DeFore among the cast. The production caught the attention of Oscar Hammerstein II, who brought it to Broadway in 1938, with DeFore and five of the original cast members joining the transfer. The show ran for four weeks and marked DeFore's Broadway debut. He remained in New York and secured a prominent role in The Male Animal, which ran for nearly eight months on Broadway and an additional eight months on tour. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1938 to 1951, also included credits in the musical The Dream Girl, the play Steel, and Where Do We Go From Here?. Before his Broadway debut, DeFore had spent several years touring the country with stock companies.

DeFore's screen career began with a small part in the 1936 film Reunion. Through the early 1940s he appeared with increasing regularity in Hollywood productions, including The Male Animal (1942), A Guy Named Joe (1943), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), You Came Along (1945), Without Reservations (1946), It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), Romance on the High Seas (1948), My Friend Irma (1949), and Jumping Jacks (1952). In 1946, exhibitors ranked him fourth among the most promising stars of tomorrow. He also worked extensively in radio, appearing on programs such as Suspense, Old Gold Comedy Theater, and Lux Radio Theatre.

Television became the medium most closely associated with DeFore's public profile. Beginning in 1952, he played Thorny, the Nelsons' affable neighbor, on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, a role he held until 1957. His performance earned him a 1955 Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Regular Series. From 1961 to 1965, he co-starred in the NBC sitcom Hazel as George Baxter, the employer of the housekeeper Hazel Burke, portrayed by Shirley Booth and based on a cartoon character from The Saturday Evening Post. DeFore replaced character actor Edward Andrews, who had played Baxter in the pilot episode. The series ran four seasons on NBC before CBS picked it up for a fifth season in 1965–66, at which point DeFore and co-star Whitney Blake were written out. In 1970, he appeared as Mayor Evans in the episode "Colonel Mackenzie Versus the West" on the television Western The Men from Shiloh, playing a murderer — a notable departure from the comedic roles that had defined his television career. DeFore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6804 Hollywood Blvd.

Beyond performing, DeFore served as president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from 1954 to 1955 and was instrumental in arranging the first nationally televised broadcast of the Emmy Awards on March 7, 1955. He also served on the board of the Screen Actors Guild. In July 1969, he represented the United States as a delegate at the Moscow International Film Festival.

DeFore married singer Marion Holmes on February 14, 1942, with Judy Garland serving as Holmes's matron of honor. Holmes had performed with the Henry Busse Orchestra from 1935 to 1939 and later with Art Kassel and his Castles in the Air until the time of their marriage. The couple had five children — Penny, David, Dawn, Ron, and Autumn — and remained married until DeFore's death. In 1965, DeFore and his daughter Penny co-authored With All My Love, a book documenting Penny's work at a Korean orphanage. From 1957 to 1962, DeFore and his family operated the Silver Banjo Barbecue, a restaurant in Frontierland at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. DeFore and his family were longtime residents of the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, where he served as honorary mayor. He was also a member of the advisory committee for the California Department of Rehabilitation and a 33rd degree Scottish Rite and Master Mason Freemason.

A committed Republican, DeFore supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election and served as a delegate at the 1976 and 1980 Republican National Conventions. President Ronald Reagan, a personal friend, appointed him to the Presidential Advisory Council to the Peace Corps. DeFore died of cardiac arrest on December 22, 1993, at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. His cremated remains are interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.