‘Green Acres’ Reprise Brings Albert, Gabor Home to Hooterville

Can you sing the theme to “Green Acres?”

Do you remember Arnold the Pig? Goofy Lisa? Mr. Haney? Oliver Wendell Douglas?

Tonight on CBS, they’re all down on the farm again in “Return to Green Acres,” a made-for-TV movie with most of the original Hooterville cast.

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor reprise their roles as a successful Manhattan lawyer and his ditsy wife. They played the characters from 1965 to 1971 when CBS ended its price supports for their make-believe farm.

Gabor--who is sixtysomething--is back on the publicity trail these days doing interviews to promote the movie special.

“Here we are back again,” she says. “Except for ‘Lucy,’ I don’t know of any other show that’s been on as much as ‘Green Acres.’ It’s on in Africa; it’s everywhere.”

And though she loves the part, she thinks it has stereotyped her.

“Hollywood type-casts you always. It’s very difficult to get out of that. I was never given a chance to do a performance where the audience can see that I’m a serious actress,” she says.

When she arrived here from Budapest, Hungary, Gabor signed with Paramount Pictures and did two unmemorable movies--”Forced Landing” in 1941 and 1942’s “Pacific Blackout.”

Paramount soon dropped her. Television, however, was kinder, as Gabor tackled variety shows, guest appearances and even Chekhov, co-starring with Boris Karloff in “Uncle Vanya.”

People recognize her no matter where she goes, she says, oftentimes mistaking her for her cop-slapping sister, Zsa Zsa. Being mixed up with her sister is something she has had to deal with most of her life.

“It does not help to be from a family where there is so much chaos,” she says, and laughs. “I walk down the street and people yell, ‘Hey, Zsa Zsa,’ and I say, ‘Not Zsa Zsa--Eva!’ ”