I have read that he was a skinflint and that may be why he sold so much of his personal belongings rather than move them when he went back to North Carolina.
He was also your typical Hollywood liberal.
When I was around 6 and we lived in Panama City, he performed at the Dixie Sherman Hotel. This was around 1953. Of course I did not get to go but the radio station played a lot of his acts while he was there.
He really could spin a good yarn. One of them was “Romeo and Juliet, another was “What it Was, Was Football”. I can’t recall the others off hand.