Hank Patterson was born in Springville, Alabama to Green and Mary Newton Patterson. Hank's great-grandfather, James Pearson, was an original settler of St. Clair County, AL as was his mother's great-grandfather, Thomas Newton. Between 1894 & 1897, the family left AL to live in Taylor, Texas, where Hank attempted to work as a serious musician, only to settle for playing piano in traveling vaudeville shows. He worked his way out to California in the 1920s and here began his film career followed by long runs on two television series _"Gunsmoke" .
Great-uncle of Ta Leoni
He appeared in two 1950s science fiction films that involved giant spiders: Tarantula and Earth vs the Spider .
He played the same character (Fred Ziffel) in three different series: "The Beverly Hillbillies" , "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres" .
By the time Patterson was doing "Green Acres" he was in his late 70s and almost completely deaf, but the producers loved his portrayal so much they worked around his hearing impairment by having the dialogue coach lying on the floor, out-of-shot, tapping Hanks leg with a yardstick as a cue to speak his line.
