It turns out that even Buddy Ebsen didn’t know why Barnaby Jones loved milk so much
Milk, shaken, not stirred.
Milk haters, this article is not for you. Milk lovers, please feel free to continue reading. As we all know, milk is a superior beverage to most other drinks. Why else would you use it to make other things like coffee and cereal taste better? For all the unnecessary fluff milk has gotten in the last couple of years with the popularization of variants like oat milk and almond milk, we raise our literal glasses to the irreplaceable victor: Plain old milk.
If you’re a milk lover, you’re also in good company. If you recall, it was the favorite beverage of one private investigator, Barnaby Jones. The role was portrayed by television great Buddy Ebsen. While most hard-boiled Investigators were chugging whiskey in the privacy of their offices, Barnaby Jones always kept a gallon of two percent milk in his fridge. Ebsen later revealed in his autobiography, The Other Side of Oz, that even he wasn’t sure where the character’s love of milk had come from.
Ebsen wrote, “I’m not sure who came up with it, but Barnaby was given a penchant for drinking milk. It wasn’t that he disapproved of people who drink alcohol, it was just that he liked milk. It became his trademark .
It’s a fairly simple explanation for a fictional character, but it leads to worldwide recognition for Ebsen in his real life. He recalls an incident where a waitress made a nod to his character one day when Ebsen sat down for a spot of lunch.
Ebsen wrote, “During a hiatus, I was sailing my boat off the West Coast of Florida. I went into a little restaurant in Pensacola, sat a moment, and then a young waitress with a big grin on her face walked over and put a glass of milk on my table. It was a win-win situation. She enjoyed the gag. I enjoyed the milk, plus the recognition. It happens quite often now.”
Not to generalize, but if Buddy Ebsen is in a television series, it’s probably going to be good. We mean no disrespect to today’s actors, who seem to be getting younger by the minute, but Ebsen brought a level of talent and confidence to each of his roles that only a mature actor can.
Ebsen was fifty-four when he starred in The Beverly Hillbillies as Jed Clampett and was even older when he took on the title role of Barnaby Jones.
In many interviews throughout his career, Ebsen demonstrated a fire and energy that rivaled those half his age and showed no indication that he’d be slowing down his acting career for anything.
However, according to an interview with the Camarillo Star, Ebsen did have plans to move towards an early form of retirement… right before he got the role of a lifetime on The Beverly Hillbillies.
Ebsen explained, “I was planning to semi-retire in 1962, and intended to write and just act in things I wanted to do.” While Ebsen’s semi-retirement still sounds like a full-time career, given the actor’s pace, his version of retirement might be slowing things down his way.
Anyhow, any and all plans of slowing down were thrown out the window when Ebsen was handed a new script for The Beverly Hillbillies.
He said, “My agent handed me this script, and I started reading, and laughing, and by the time I finished laughing, I had signed a contract.”
Even after The Beverly Hillbillies was canceled, Ebsen continued to write his own work, as well as continue acting. Eventually, he landed Barnaby Jones on the very network that had previously canceled The Beverly Hillbillies, CBS.
