Sam Buffington

Sam Buffington (October 12, 1931 – May 15, 1960) was an American actor whose short career included performances on stage, radio, film, and television. He was the star of the CBS radio series Luke Slaughter of Tombstone during 1958 and was one of three regular cast members on the Whispering Smith television series. His stage and screen roles were limited to character parts. His career was going strong and had good prospects when, at age 28, he committed suicide.

Early years
He was born in Swansea, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children for Carl Buffington, a lumber company manager, and Annette Gendron. His parents were in their forties when Buffington was born, and his nearest sibling was eight years older. At age 18, Buffington appears as a roomer in a Brookline, Massachusetts, boarding house during 1950, when he was attending the Leland Powers School of Radio and Theater. According to a 1951 newspaper article, he was working in nightclubs as an MC and comic dancer.

Early career
Buffington's first known professional stage credits come from summer stock with the Allegheny Players at the Mishler Theatre in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He was signed to perform character parts in six plays, each with a week-long run. After the Mishler run completed, the Allegheny Players performed for a week in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, where Buffington had the male lead in a comedy.

Radio and stage
For the years 1952 through 1955 Buffington worked in both radio and on the stage. His radio work was at a station in Providence, Rhode Island, where according to a later interview, he had three shows under three different names and as many voices. Buffington lamented, "The unfortunate thing about it was that I only got the salary of one man". His stage work continued to be with the Allegheny Players during the summer seasons.

Screen beginnings
Discouraged by lack of work on the East Coast, Buffington and his wife moved to the West Coast during 1956. He told a later interviewer: "We figured it couldn't be any worse. But it was. We had just $90 when we got here. The first eight months she had to work to support me". Then he began appearing in small roles on television, and in a Grade B film, Invasion of the Saucer Men. His breakthrough came in May 1957 with an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, wherein he played a thoroughly disagreeable character. Reviews claimed "...it's Sam Buffington's portrayal of a rude, sloppy hypochondriac which steals the show". Within the next six months he would have roles in six films, all released in 1958, and five more television shows, an auspicious first year.

For the film Damn Citizen, a reviewer said "Sam Buffington does a splendid job of making himself thoroughly unpleasant in the role of a gambling casino operator". Another reported "Sam Buffington's cunning small-time gambler is about twice as convincing as the real thing would be and also very amusing". This was the high point of his film career; in no other movie did he capture critical attention. His career would continue to thrive on the small screen, as he completed more television episodes with each succeeding year.

Buffington appeared as himself on a local interview program called Meet the People during February 1958. This was a lead-in to his starring role on a new CBS national radio program.

Luke Slaughter of Tombstone
While filming an episode of The Gray Ghost, Buffington had asked Lillian Buyeff how she had gotten a gig on the radio drama Suspense. She sent him to Bill Robson, a CBS radio producer, and about two months later Buffington was cast for the lead in a CBS radio western.

Luke Slaughter of Tombstone began broadcasting on February 23, 1958, with Buffington playing the title character. He portrayed a Civil War cavalryman, who after the war becomes a cattleman in Arizona. The nationally heard program began five minutes after the hour, following a short CBS News break. It was one of three western series broadcast by CBS on Sunday afternoons. The program ran twenty-five minutes per episode, including commercials.

The first episode had Slaughter drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Tombstone, while the second had him dealing with renegade lawmen who were after the proceeds from the cattle sale. The series was suspended during July 1958, and Buffington used the time off to perform in Bell, Book and Candle with the La Jolla Playhouse.

Despite his radio commitment, Buffington still managed to appear in sixteen episodes of television during 1958. He also completed film work for They Came to Cordura, released the following year. For 1959 he did seventeen more television episodes, before landing a regular cast member spot in early 1960 on a new western series.

Whispering Smith
This half-hour western series made at Revue Studios for NBC starred Audie Murphy and Guy Mitchell as frontier detectives for the Denver Police Department, c. 1870. Buffington, who was third-credited, played their superior officer, Chief of Police John Richards. In the film Unwed Mother he played husband to actress Dorothy Adams.

Death and controversy
While Buffington's wife Pat was in Palm Springs, California, he wrote a note to her, locked himself in the bathroom, sealed air passages under the door and window, and turned on a gas jet. When she returned home to West Hollywood, California, on Sunday evening, May 15, 1960, she had to break-in the bathroom door. Buffington was dead; his note apologized to her for not being able to support her, and requested cremation. Buffington's friends expressed surprise at the note, since he had made over $20,000 the year before and had good career prospects. Brief stories appeared the next day in California newspapers detailing the circumstances. The UPI story, with a West Hollywood dateline, cited alternatively police and sheriff's detectives as the source, but was carried by only one out-of-state newspaper. There were no follow-up stories to the original UPI release, nor did any newspapers carry the original story after the first day. This was a highly unusual story arc for such a newsworthy event, and suggests UPI pulled the original release.

When a year had passed, and Whispering Smith was finally set to debut on NBC television, newspaper announcements made only a brief reference to "the late Sam Buffington, who died after only 20 episodes were filmed".

Personal life
An accomplished painter of portraits in oil, Buffington once tried to make a living of it. After he became an actor, he donated eight of his works to children's hospitals.

Buffington married Patricia Ann Whitehouse on July 15, 1953, in Vance County, North Carolina. They remained married until his death in 1960.

Stage performances
Listed by year of first performance