Ocean tribute planned for Buddy Ebsen

Deepa Bharath

Buddy Ebsen was 12 when he first got a glimpse of the ocean.

The boy, who would later become an actor and legend, was

dumbstruck by the vastness and power of the living, breathing ocean.

Ebsen, a former Balboa Bay Club member and resident of Balboa

Island, died last month at 95. But his family will return to Newport

Beach today to fulfill Ebsen’s last wishes -- to scatter his ashes in

the ocean he loved so deeply.

Ebsen, who is best known as Jed Clampett on “The Beverly

Hillbillies” and Barnaby Jones on the show of the same name, once

lived across the harbor from the Balboa Pavilion.

Today’s ceremony will be “a celebration of his life,” said his

wife, Dorothy Ebsen.

“I don’t look at it as a burial,” she said. “I believe we’ll be

giving him to the living sea.”

Some people like mountains, and some like the ocean, she said.

“His love affair with the ocean started early in his life,”

Dorothy Ebsen said.

Her husband wrote out his last wishes in great detail eight years

ago, she said.

He wanted his family to go out in a boat with his favorite

Dixieland jazz band Chicago 6. He even knew what songs he wanted them

to play and when. They would go into the ocean with a trumpet solo of

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and return to the swinging sound of

“When the Saints Come Marching In.”

“And he writes,” his wife said tearfully, “that we should have

food and drinks when we get back and tell only funny stories.”

Longtime Newport Beach resident John Crean, also Ebsen’s best

friend for many years, is organizing today’s ceremony at the family’s

request.

“I’ve known him for 25 years now,” he said. “He was a good friend

and a great guy.”

Ebsen’s wife called him “a genius.”

“He had so many talents many people didn’t even know about,” she

said. “He was a dancer, playwright and a painter, and I have a

basement full of his works.”

She said she would like future generations to remember him as a

“giving person.”

“He saw beauty and goodness in everything,” she said.

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.