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Lifelong friend of Lucille Ball.
Barbara Pepper was pure "dame" through and through. Along with other flashy character broads of the 1930s such as Iris Adrian, Joan Blondell and Veda Ann Borg, Barbara had a hard-boiled style all her own. Most people remember her from the late 1960s as the shrill, slovenly barnyard neighbor of Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor on TV`s "Green Acres" (1965) who played "mother" to a TV-watching pig named "Arnold Ziffel." It`s hard to imagine, then, that this hefty, porcine-like actress was once a blue-eyed, platinum-blonde knockout and former Ziegfeld/Goldwyn Girl.
Barbara was born Marion Pepper in New York City in 1915. By age 16, her mind was already set for a show biz career. Within a short time and against her parents` wishes, she nabbed a show girl spot in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.`s Follies and changed her first name to Barbara. Here is where she met fellow chorine Lucille Ball and the two became dedicated friends. Barbara soon integrated radio and film work as well, paying her dues primarily in bit parts as saloon girls, clerks, chippies, and the like. Her film debut was as a slave girl extra (along with Lucy) in Eddie Cantor`s Roman Scandals (1933). A couple of movies gave her the chance for brassy stardom, including Our Daily Bread (1934) as a floozie named Sally, and a love interest role opposite comedian Bert Wheeler (of Wheeler and Woolsey) in Mummy`s Boys (1936), but the roles were basically one-dimensional and she remained in the secondary ranks. In 1943, she married actor Craig Reynolds and the marriage seemed a happy one. In 1949, however, her husband died tragically in a motorcycle accident. Barbara was absolutely devastated. Overwhelmed with her loss and the prospect of raising two sons alone, severe depression and a debilitating alcohol problem set in. Her weight ballooned, her looks and voice grew bloated and coarse, and she could only muster up tiny roles on film and TV as various comic snoops and harridans. Friends like Lucy stepped in to help. Over the years, Barbara would be glimpsed several times on "I Love Lucy" (1951), including the "Friends of the Friendless" episode and as a frightened hospital nurse who is taken aback by "Ricky Ricardo"`s severe voodoo make-up when Lucy gives birth. Barbara also appeared occasionally on Jack Benny`s show and the "Perry Mason" (1957) series playing various small but colorful characters.
In the 1960s, Barbara was glimpsed as a minor fat foil for Jerry Lewis in several of his slapstick film vehicles. One bright note and a steady paycheck came her way toward the very end of her career when she copped the role of "Doris Ziffel" on "Green Acres" (1965) in 1965 with the nearly-deaf crusty veteran character actor Hank Patterson as her dirt-farmer husband Fred. Although "son" Arnold the Pig received more fan mail than the two put together, Barbara was fun in her cranky role. But the fun wouldn`t last. Her health deteriorated rapidly during the run of the show and she was eventually forced to give up the part during the 1968-1969 season, with actress Fran Ryan taking over the wifely chores. Plagued by a heart condition, Barbara died of a coronary in July, 1969, at the age of 54, looking at least a decade older, if not more.
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After Bea Benaderet proved unavailable, Barbara was seriously considered for the part of "Ethel Mertz" on friend Lucille Ball's classic sitcom in 1951, two years after Barbara's husband was killed. But by this time, the depressed Barbara had developed a chronic alcohol problem. With William Frawley ("Fred Mertz"), whose fondness for the bottle was legendary, already cast, executive producer Desi Arnaz felt he couldn't take the chance of having to keep two people in line. Vivian Vance, of course, eventually got the part.
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