Ezra Stone

Ezra Stone, born Ezra Chaim Feinstone on December 2, 1917, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was an American actor, director, and producer whose career spanned stage, radio, film, and television. The son of Sol Feinstone, a chemistry professor, Stone attended Temple University's Oak Lane Country Day School before training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He died on March 3, 1994, from injuries sustained in a car accident near Perth Amboy, New Jersey, at the age of 76.

Stone's first encounter with performance came at age seven, when he made a radio debut in Philadelphia delivering what he later described as recitations — pieces such as The Raven — on air. His professional stage career began in the mid-1930s, and his Broadway appearances spanned from 1931 to 1949. His debut on Broadway came in Treasure Island, and subsequent acting credits included O Evening Star, January Thaw, Tom Sawyer, Brother Rat, Horse Fever, The Alchemist, She Stoops to Conquer, What a Life, and the musical This Is the Army. He also directed several Broadway productions, among them Curtains Up!, Me and Molly, and At War With the Army.

The role that defined Stone's public identity was Henry Aldrich, the awkwardly mischievous teenager at the center of the radio comedy series The Aldrich Family. He was first cast as Henry in Clifford Goldsmith's stage play What a Life, and Goldsmith subsequently developed the character into sketches for radio programs featuring Rudy Vallee and Kate Smith. The sketches' popularity led NBC to commission a full half-hour comedy as a summer replacement for Jack Benny in 1939, and by that year The Aldrich Family had become a hit series in its own right. The show's signature exchange — Katharine Raht's drawn-out call of "Hen-reeeeeee! Hennnnn-ry Aldrich!" and Stone's warbling reply of "Coming, Mother!" — was fashioned initially by director Bob Welsh and became an instant trademark. House Jameson played father Sam Aldrich throughout the run.

Stone held the role of Henry Aldrich until 1942, when his military service with the Army's Special Services unit during World War II interrupted his tenure. During his absence, the part was taken successively by Norman Tokar, Dickie Jones from 1943 to 1944, and Raymond Ives from 1944 to 1945. Stone returned to the role after the war and continued until 1952, when Bobby Ellis assumed it for the show's final radio season. Radio historian Gerald Nachman noted that Stone's physical appearance — he was described as a heavyset man who wore a vest and smoked cigars — bore little resemblance to the gawky all-American teenager he voiced, a contrast that reportedly surprised studio audiences. Jackie Kelk, who played Henry's friend Homer, recalled that he himself looked more the part than Stone did.

When his run on The Aldrich Family concluded, Stone shifted his focus primarily to directing. His first television directing assignment was the television adaptation of The Aldrich Family in 1952. He went on to direct episodes of numerous television series, including I Married Joan, Bachelor Father, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, Lassie, The Munsters, Lost in Space, Julia, and Love, American Style. By 1969, he was estimated to have directed between 300 and 400 television programs. Stone also appeared in small acting roles on television, including the role of a film director in the Season 2 Emergency! episode "Show Biz," and took part in the 1976 television special The Good Old Days of Radio alongside Art Linkletter, Eddie Anderson, Jim Jordan, Dennis Day, George Fenneman, and Edgar Bergen.

Beyond performing and directing, Stone spent eighteen years producing approximately 200 motivational and training films for IBM. In 1961, he produced the television series The Hathaways. In 1963, he directed the filming of a joint project involving IBM, the National Institutes of Health, and M. D. Anderson Hospital's Department of Experimental Anesthesiology, documenting a surgical monitoring system. Stone was also a founding member of the American College Theatre Festival.

Stone received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Radio section, located at 1634 Vine Street, dedicated on February 8, 1960. He was married to actress Sara Seegar for 48 years until her death in 1990. The couple lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and had two children, a son named Joseph and a daughter named Francine. Stone died four years after his wife, and their ashes were interred together at Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Newtown, Pennsylvania, in 2013.