Benaderet was a guest star in one episode as elderly Miss Lewis, a neighbor of the Ricardos.

While doing Husband, veteran character actors Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet had played Rudolph and Iris Atterbury, an older, more financially stable couple as Mr. Atterbury was George Cooper's ( Lucy's radio husband's ) boss.

Ball had initially wanted both actors to reprise their roles on television, however, both were unavailable at the time the show went into production as Benaderet was already playing Blanche Morton on Burns and Allen, and Gordon was under contract by CBS to play Mr. Conklin on the radio and television versions of Our Miss Brooks.

" As Jones was unable to get Foray to play the role, Bea Benaderet supplied the witch's voice.

Actress Bea Benaderet, a friend of Lucille Ball, was the first choice to play the character of Ethel Mertz.

Benaderet was unavailable, however, owing to a prior commitment.

CBS refused Pepper on the grounds that she had a drinking problem, and Benaderet was already playing Blanche Morton on the Burns and Allen television series.

Adding spice to Gildersleeve's life are the women who come and go: the Georgia widow Leila Ransom ( Shirley Mitchell ), who leaves him at the altar on the last show of the 1942-43 season ( June 27, 1943 ), and the school principal Eve Goodwin ( Bea Benaderet ), who was another close call at the altar of matrimony ( June 25, 1944 ).

Set in the rural town of Hooterville, the show followed the goings-on at The Shady Rest Hotel, of which Kate Bradley ( Bea Benaderet ) was the proprietor.

Bea Benaderet was born April 4, 1906, Edgar Buchanan died April 4, 1979.

Granny looks at a picture of Kate and is astonished at her resemblance to Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine ( previously played by Benaderet ), and prior to her visit to Hooterville, reminded Jed that he was related to Kate through Pearl.

Beatrice " Bea " Benaderet ( April 4, 1906 – October 13, 1968 ) was an American actress born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, California.

When Ball and husband Desi Arnaz decided to develop this program for television in a series called I Love Lucy, Benaderet was first choice to fill the role of Ethel Mertz, but was ultimately unavailable to accept it since she had already been cast for the fledgeling Burns and Allen television show.

Benaderet was quite busy during the last decade of her life, starting with a voice role as Betty Rubble in the animated series The Flintstones, which debuted in 1960.

Benaderet received no on-screen credit for her many voice characterizations with Warner Bros., as the studio was bound by Blanc's iron-clad contractual stipulation that no other voice actor could ever receive credit for their work while he himself was under contract to Warners.

The Green Acres television series later became a spinoff of Petticoat Junction, with Eva Gabor portraying Benaderet's original part in this new series, and Benaderet herself showing up in the first few episodes as her Petticoat Junction character, in order to establish the Hooterville setting ( Eddie Albert took Gale Gordon's role as the lawyer who moves to the country to become a farmer ; whether he was considered for the role or not, Gordon was otherwise occupied with his role on The Lucy Show ).

Benaderet was diagnosed with cancer in 1967, which led to her departure from Petticoat Junction in what was hoped would be a temporary absence, during which time Rosemary DeCamp was brought in to play " Aunt Helen " in scripts obviously written for Benaderet's character Kate.

Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet, supporting cast members on My Favorite Husband, were originally approached for the roles of Fred and Ethel, but neither could accept owing to previous commitments.

Sickness kept Bea Benaderet away for the last portion of the sitcom's fifth season.

Benaderet returned for the sixth season but her return proved short-lived as she only made three appearances ( ep.

Benaderet supposedly resigned from the show in 1964 owing to the workload on Petticoat Junction, when in fact Director Joe Barbera unceremoniously replaced her with Gerry Johnson for the remainder of the series ' run.

However, Benaderet was well enough to return for a few additional episodes in the fall of 1968 before being written out permanently.

Twombly had been a sound-effects artist for a number of radio and television shows, including The Jack Benny Program, on which Benaderet had been a regular cast member.

* 1930 census records for Beatrice Benaderet, indicating 1907 as year of birth and age as 23 in April 1930.

According to Filmways Publicist Ted Switzer, series creator and producer Paul Henning had decided to cast Bea Benaderet as Granny ; however, when Ryan read for the role, “ with her hair tied back in a bun and feisty as all get out, she just blew everyone away .” Al Simon ( executive producer ) and Henning immediately said: “ That ’ s Granny .” Later when Benaderet saw Ryan's tryout, she agreed.

Other characters in and out of the Gildersleeve orbit included Richard LeGrand as Peavey the druggist ( his dry, almost mumbled " Oh, now, I wouldn't say that " also became a familiar catch-phrase ), Arthur Q. Bryan ( making a name as sarcastic Doc Gamble on Fibber McGee & Molly ) as Floyd the barber, Ken Christy as police chief Gates, Shirley Mitchell as Leila Ransom, Bea Benaderet as another Gildersleeve paramour Eve Goodwin, and occasionally Gale Gordon ( Mayor LaTrivia on McGee ) as Rumson Bullard, a neighbour who served Gildersleeve the way Gildersleeve had once served Fibber McGee --- an equal for obnoxiousness.

She also appeared in several episodes of the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction as Kate Bradley's sister, Helen, filling in as a temporary replacement for the ailing Bea Benaderet as the mother figure to Bradley's three daughters.

Lucille Ball had wanted either Bea Benaderet or Barbara Pepper, both close friends, to play the role.

Benaderet did appear in a guest role on I Love Lucy on January 21, 1952 as " Miss Lewis ", a love-starved spinster neighbor.

Benaderet continued to perform the voice of Granny well into the 1950s, when June Foray replaced her in that role in 1955.

Of course, each of his tricks fail, either due to their flaws or, more often than not, because of intervention by either Hector the Bulldog or an indignant Granny ( voiced by Bea Benaderet and later June Foray ), or after Tweety steers the enemy toward them or another device ( such as off the ledge of a tall building or an oncoming train ).

Benaderet began voicing the character of Granny ( the sometimes dimwitted, sometimes assertive owner of Tweety ) in the Warner Bros. cartoon series beginning in 1943.

Benaderet voiced numerous female characters in the Warner Bros. animated shorts of the 1940s, displaying a great deal of versatility in her repertoire, from her natural feminine voice, to the " Granny " character, to the loquacious bobby-soxer ( inspired by loud-mouthed comedienne Cass Daley ) in Little Red Riding Rabbit ( 1944 ).

The radio series, which lasted 13 episodes, had starred Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as a big-city family who move to the country.

However, the female Bodines disappeared after Henning cast Benaderet in his next series Petticoat Junction, which premiered in September 1963.

Pearl ( played by Bea Benaderet ) appeared in most of the first season episodes, as did Jethro's twin sister Jethrine, played by Baer in drag, using Linda Kaye Henning's voiceover.

Granny's voice was first provided by Bea Benaderet from 1937 through 1953.

The Shady Rest Hotel was run by widowed Kate Bradley ( played by Bea Benaderet ) and her lazy, overweight uncle " Uncle Joe " Carson ( Edgar Buchanan ).

She is featured as main character Daffy Duck's blonde girlfriend in several cartoon shorts but is only referred to as Melissa in one, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, where she is voiced by Bea Benaderet.

Petticoat Junction is another series often cited in the purge, but that show was already in decline ( due in part to the death of star Bea Benaderet ) by the time it was canceled in 1970.

* Voices: Mel Blanc, June Foray, Arthur Q. Bryan, Daws Butler, Bea Benaderet, Paul Frees, Marvin Miller, Hal Smith, Larry Storch, Barbara Cameron, Julie Bennett, Sara Berner, Robert C. Bruce II, Paul Julian, Dick Beals, Stan Freberg