[dennisw]

Died at 95. What a long life as an actor too.

[dennisw]

He was born Christian Rudolph Ebsen in Belleville, Ill., on April 2, 1908. His father owned a dancing school, where the nicknamed Buddy learned the fundamentals. The family moved to Orlando, Fla., when the boy was 10, and he began pre-medical studies at the University of Florida and Rollins College. But family financial problems forced him to leave school and, at 20, he decided to try his luck as a dancer in New York.

"I arrived in New York with $26.25 in my pocket and a letter of introduction to a friend of a friend's cousin," he recalled. "I got a job in a road company, but the producer said, `That boy one foot taller than the rest of 'em - out!'"