Visit the Official Edgar Buchanan Website Edgar Buchanan was born March 20, 1903 in Humansville, Mo. While still a youngster the family moved to the Oregon mountains where he grew up.
He attended high school in Ashland, Ore., then enrolled at the University of Oregon in Eugene to study medicine. There he developed an interest in acting and the theater.
After five years at the university, Buchanan - at the urging of his father, who was a dentist - transferred to North Pacific Dental College in Portland. He spent two years there, then returned to the University of Oregon to become an assistant in the drama department.
Buchanan won a two-year Yale University scholarship in dramatics, but his father persuaded him to forego it and finish his dental education. In 1928 he met and married a dental-college classmate, and the following year the couple received their diplomas.
While studying dentistry Buchanan appeared with the Henry Duffy stock company in Portland and in various little theaters.
Buchanan then settled in California, establishing a dental practice in Altadena while performing, during the winters of 1937 and 1938, in 11 productions at the nearby Pasadena Playhouse.
After film scouts spotted him, he began getting so many Hollywood acting assignments that he was forced to make a choice between dentistry and acting.
He chose acting, but he still is licensed to practice dentistry in California and Oregon and keeps abreast of newest developments in the field.
Buchanan's movie credits include more that 80 feature pictures and, before "Petticoat Junction", 150 television dramas.
Buchanan and his wife, Mildred, live in a Hollywood apartment with their son, William Edgar Buchanan III. Buchanan's hobbies include hunting, fishing and golf.
[Editor's note - Edgar Buchanan died on April 4, 1979 at the age of 76]
