Peter Palmer, the living embodiment of Al Capp's Li'l Abner, has died at the age of 90. This obit has all the details. I wrote at length about him in this article about the Li'l Abner Broadway show and this article about the movie made from it. Here's an excerpt from the former…
But if finding Daisy Mae was easy, obtaining an Abner proved impossible for a time. Actor after actor auditioned for the role and the casting directors continually broadened their search area, seeking someone who was tall and muscular and who could sing. "We started to panic," [co-author Norman] Panama later recalled. "No matter how good the rest of the show was, no matter how good the rest of the cast was, we knew that without a strong Abner, we were dead." After an exhaustive search that involved auditioning Andy Griffith and inquiring on the availability of Elvis Presley, they settled on the best available candidate, actor-comedian Dick Shawn.
"We weren't completely satisfied with Shawn," Panama remembers. He lacked the brawny musculature that Kidd, Panama and Frank all felt was essential to the role, especially given the show's plotline. Shawn agreed to spend time at a gymnasium and costume designer Alvin Colt began to plan how the actor's physique might be enhanced with padding and shoe lifts.
Shawn's manager reminded his client that a hit show could mean a year or more of solid work and suggested that Shawn take a vacation before rehearsals commenced. The actor departed for the Bahamas, thinking he would begin work on the show upon his return.
The following Sunday evening, Kidd, Frank and Panama were watching Steve Allen's TV show on NBC. A commercial came on and, on a whim, Frank changed the channel over to see what was on Ed Sullivan's competing show on CBS. The threesome heard Sullivan introduce a young soldier who had won the All-Army Talent Competition. A handsome enlisted man took the stage and proceeded to sing "Granada" in spectacular voice.
"That's Abner," Kidd gasped. Indeed, apart from his blonde hair, the singer looked more the part of Abner Yokum than Dick Shawn did…and his singing was vastly superior. The next day, a secretary spent several hours on the phone, tracking down the future star of Li'l Abner. His name was Peter Palmer.
Born in Milwaukee and reared in St. Louis, Peter Palmer became a Missouri All-Star football tackle and attended the University of Illinois. There, he became the first music major to win a letter in football and probably the only gridiron hero to sing the National Anthem before games. Fresh out of college, he won a Chicago radio contest and that led him to Hollywood where most of the major studios butted heads, trying to sign him to contracts. Instead, he enlisted in the service.
Palmer's appearance on Ed Sullivan's program was but one stop in a tour of military installations. "When I got home," he recalls. "There was a message from my wife in San Antonio. She had all these messages from some producers in New York. We didn't have a phone so they'd called our neighbors.
"I called them back collect and Mel and Norman got on the phone — one was on an extension — and they said they were producing this show and they asked, 'Do you know who we are?' And I said no. And then they said, 'It's going to be directed by Michael Kidd. Do you know who that is?' And I said no.
"They asked me if I knew the comic strip and I said yes, it was my favorite. It really was but it had never occurred to me that I might someday play Abner.
"They paid for tickets so my brother and I could fly to New York. I was in my Army uniform and they had me read for them and sing and take my shirt off so they could see if I had real muscles, which I did." Palmer was 24 years old at the time. He was 6'4" and weighed 220 pounds. With his hair dyed black, he looked like he'd stepped right out of an Al Capp drawing. Panama and Frank had to call in favors in Washington to arrange for Palmer to receive his discharge two months early so he could join the cast.
Soon after, Dick Shawn returned from the Bahamas to the news that he didn't have the role he'd thought he had. He was angry but he eventually made the best of the situation by using it in his club act. "Dick and I became friends," Palmer recalls. "He'd kid me about it all. He'd sometimes do ten minutes in his show about how he was laying on the beach in the Bahamas while Peter Palmer was taking his job." (Shawn reportedly told several people that Palmer was infinitely better in the role than he would have been.)
I think that's one of the best "getting discovered" stories I've ever heard in a lifetime of devouring show biz stories. And I think Peter Palmer as Abner was just about the most perfect casting I've ever seen.
I met Peter on the set of a short-lived situation comedy called The Kallikaks that was on NBC for all of five episodes in 1976. He was a regular on the series and I was writing what would have been Episode #6 if there'd been an Episode #6. A few years later, I had a couple of long phone calls with him, interviewing him for the articles. I remember in one, he was about to go on tour with his wife, performing the musical, I Do, I Do. And he said, "We alternate playing in that and The Music Man. I got too old to do Abner." Wish I could have seen him in any of those shows.
Very nice man. Very proud of his career…and humble. Well aware of the flukish nature of his entire career. It was a good one.