Carl Dean Switzer (August 7, 1927 – January 21, 1959) was an American child actor, comic singer, dog breeder, and guide. He was best known for his role as Alfalfa in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies.
Switzer (rhyming with "Schweitzer", as pronounced in the Our Gang shorts Framing Youth and Alfalfa's Aunt) began his career as a child actor in 1934. He appeared in the Our Gang shorts as Alfalfa, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters. After outgrowing the series in 1940, Switzer struggled to find substantial roles, but was typecast as a juvenile actor. As an adult, he appeared mainly in bit parts and B-movies. He later became a dog breeder and hunting guide.
Switzer married heiress Diantha Collingwood in 1954 and they had one son. He was shot and killed by Moses "Bud" Stiltz in 1959 due to a disagreement regarding a business arrangement.
Carl Switzer was born in Paris, Illinois, on August 7, 1927, the youngest of four children born to Gladys Carrie Shanks (1904–1997) and George Frederick "Fred" Switzer (1905–1960). Gladys and Fred's first child, a boy, died in 1922, an hour and a half after being born. Carl's sister Janice Switzer was born in 1923 and his brother Harold Switzer was born in 1925. Harold and he became famous in their hometown for their musical talent and performances. Both sang and could play a number of instruments.
In 1934, the Switzers traveled to California to visit family. While sightseeing, they went to Hal Roach Studios. Following a public tour, eight-year-old Harold and six-year-old Carl entered the Hal Roach Studio's open-to-the-public cafeteria, the Our Gang Café, and began an impromptu performance. Producer Hal Roach was present and was impressed. He signed both brothers to appear in Our Gang. Harold was given two nicknames, "Slim" and "Deadpan", while Carl was dubbed "Alfalfa".
The brothers first appeared in the 1935 Our Gang short Beginner's Luck. By the end of the year, Alfalfa was one of the main characters, with a distinctive cowlick hairstyle, while Harold had been relegated to the background. Although Carl was an experienced singer and musician, his character Alfalfa was often called upon to sing popular songs for comic effect, most often those of Bing Crosby and Pinky Tomlin. The comic effect was achieved by playing the musical accompaniment slightly beyond the young singer's range, so Switzer would struggle to reach the high notes -- resulting in squeaky, off-key tones.
By the end of 1937, Switzer's "Alfalfa" had surpassed the series' nominal star, George "Spanky" McFarland, in popularity. While the boys got along, their fathers argued constantly over their sons' screen time and salaries. Switzer's best friend among the Our Gang actors was Tommy Bond, who played his on-screen nemesis "Butch". In Bond's words, Switzer and he became good friends because "neither of us could replace the others".
Switzer's tenure in Our Gang ended in 1940, when he was 12. His first role after leaving the series was as a boy scout in I Love You Again (1940) starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. He then co-starred in the 1941 comedy Reg'lar Fellers. The next year, he had a supporting role in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Switzer continued to appear in films in various supporting roles, including in Johnny Doughboy (1942), The Human Comedy (1943), Going My Way (1944), and The Great Mike (1944).
Switzer's last starring roles were in a brief series of imitation Bowery Boys films. He reprised his "Alfalfa" character, complete with comically sour vocals, in PRC's Gas House Kids comedies in 1946 and 1947. The Gas House Kids might have continued indefinitely, but the PRC studio was absorbed by the Eagle-Lion company in August 1947, ending the series. By this time, Switzer was downplaying his earlier Our Gang work. In his 1946 resumé, he referred to the films generically as "M-G-M short product".
Switzer had small parts in both the 1946 Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life, as Donna Reed's date at a high school dance, and again in the 1948 film On Our Merry Way, as the mayor's trumpet-playing son in a fixed musical talent contest. In 1952, he played a busboy in the film Pat and Mike starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. In the 1954 musical film White Christmas, only his photograph was used; he appeared in costume as "Freckle-Faced Haynes, the Dog-Faced Boy", an army buddy of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's).
In the 1950s, Switzer started acting on television. Between 1952 and 1955, he made six appearances on The Roy Rogers Show. He also guest-starred in an episode of the American science-fiction anthology series Science Fiction Theatre and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. In 1953 and 1954, Switzer co-starred in three William A. Wellman-directed films: Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty, both starring John Wayne, and Track of the Cat, starring Robert Mitchum. Switzer himself was impressed by the Track of the Cat assignment, in which he played a white-haired Native American; it was the first time he had been called upon to play an adult character role. In 1955, he was featured (but not credited) in the Bowery Boys comedy Dig That Uranium, reuniting him with former Gas House Kids teammate Bennie Bartlett. Switzer had a bit part as a Hebrew whose son is born during the Exodus in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Switzer's final film role was in the 1958 drama The Defiant Ones.
Offscreen, Switzer bred and trained hunting dogs and guided hunting expeditions. Among his notable clients were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (godparents of Switzer's son), James Stewart, and Henry Fonda.
In early 1954, Switzer went on a blind date with Diantha Collingwood (1930–2004), also known as Dian or Diana. She was the daughter of Lelo and Faye Collingwood, and an heiress to the grain elevator empire Collingwood Grain. Collingwood had moved with her mother and sister to California in 1953 because her sister wanted to become an actress. Switzer and Collingwood got along well and married in Las Vegas three months later.
In 1956, with his money running out and Diantha pregnant, his mother-in-law offered them a farm near Pretty Prairie, Kansas. Their son, Justin Lance Collingwood Switzer (later Justin Lance Collingwood Eldridge) was born that year. They divorced in 1957. Diantha married Richard Rosswell "Ross" Eldridge (1933–2007), who adopted and raised Lance as his own, and had two other children by him, sons Chris and Lee Eldridge.
In 1987, former Our Gang co-star George "Spanky" McFarland recalled a meeting with Switzer when they spoke about the farm:
The last time I saw Carl was 1957. It was a tough time for me—and him. I was starting a tour of theme parks and county fairs in the Midwest. Carl had married this girl whose father owned a pretty good-sized farm near Wichita. When I came through town, he heard about it and called. He told me he was helping to run the farm, but he finally had to put a radio on the tractor while he was out there plowing. Knowing Carl, I knew that wasn't going to last. He may have come from Paris, Illinois, but he wasn't a farmer! We hadn't seen each other since we left the 'Gang.' So we had lunch. We talked about all the things you'd expect. And then I never saw him again. He looked pretty much the same. He was just Carl Switzer—kind of cocky, a little antsy—and I thought to myself he hadn't changed that much. He still talked big. He just grew up.
On January 26, 1958, Switzer was getting into his car in front of a bar in Studio City, when a bullet smashed through the window and struck him in the upper right arm. However, the gunman was never caught. Later that December, Switzer was arrested in Sequoia National Forest for cutting down 15 pine trees he had intended to sell illegally as Christmas trees. He was sentenced to one year's probation. Switzer was also ordered to pay a $225 fine (more than $2,500 today).
Sometime in 1958, Switzer agreed to train a hunting dog, a Treeing Walker Coonhound, for Moses Samuel "Bud" Stiltz. Stiltz was Switzer's longtime friend and sometime business partner, whom Switzer had met while working with Roy Rogers on various productions at the Corriganville Movie Ranch. The dog, while in Switzer's possession, ran off to chase after a bear and disappeared. After learning that the dog had been lost while in Switzer's care, Stiltz demanded that Switzer had to either return his dog or pay him the equivalent of the dog's value.