Don DeFore, the jovial next-door neighbor “Thorny” in the classic television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and the beleagured “Mr. B.”in Shirley Booth’s Hazel, has died. He was 80.
Mr. DeFore, veteran actor on Broadway and in films as well as television who earned his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, died on Wednesday night at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., of cardiac arrest.
Mr. Defore, who was born Aug. 25, 1913, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, began acting in high school and, after attending the University of Iowa, studied drama in the Los Angeles area.
He made his Broadway debut in 1938 and in quick succession had major roles in four plays – Where Do We Go From Here, Dream Girl, Sailor Beware and The Male Animal.
Usually cast as a smiling, gullible, urbanized good friend, Mr. DeFore appeared in two dozen films alongside such leading actors as John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Groucho Marx, Doris Day, Mickey Rooney, Rock Hudson, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball.
Among Mr. DeFore’s films were Submarine D-1 in 1937, A Guy Named Joe in 1943, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo in 1944, Stork Club in 1945, Without Reservations in 1946, Romance on the High Seas in 1947, A Girl in Every Port in 1951, Battle Hymn in 1956 and Facts of Life in 1960.
He became a familiar face to millions from 1952 to 1958 as Ozzie Nelson’s good friend “Thorny” Thornbury, one of the first next-door-neighbor roles in television.
From 1961 to 1965, he further enhanced his small-screen popularity as the patriarch George Baxter of the family who employed the irascible maid Hazel.
His most recent professional appearances were guest roles on St. Elsewhere and Murder She Wrote in the late 1980s.
A friend of former President Reagan, Mr. DeFore was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council to the U.S. Peace Corps and was a Republican Party activist.
