
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 24, 1993                   TAG: 9312240190
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SANTA MONICA, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Short

ACTOR DON DEFORE, BOSS ON `HAZEL,' DIES AT 80

Actor Don DeFore, the flustered family man in "Hazel" and TV's quintessential next-door neighbor DeFore as Thorny in "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet," has died. He was 80.

DeFore died of cardiac arrest Wednesday evening at a hospital, his son Ron said Thursday.

A television, film and stage actor, DeFore also served as president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1954 and as a member in the 1980s of President Reagan's Peace Corps advisory council.

Reagan and DeFore acted together in the 1954 film "She's Working Her Way Through College." DeFore also was a GOP convention delegate for Reagan and for George Bush.

DeFore's best-known role was as lawyer-family man George Baxter from 1961-65 in TV's "Hazel," a comedy about a headstrong maid (Shirley Booth) who dominated the Baxter household.

In ABC's "Ozzie & Harriet," DeFore played opposite the Nelson family from 1952-58. As neighbor Thorny Thornberry, he regularly offered the easygoing Ozzie bits of ill-timed advice.

DeFore also appeared in two dozen movies.

He wrote a book, "With All My Love," about one daughter's experience working in a Korean orphanage, and had just completed his autobiography.

by CNB