While The Beverly Hillbillies may be one of those ’60s sitcoms lost to time and all the network television that came afterward, in the moment, it was hugely popular. Even with big names like Erika Eleniak as Ellie May and Buddy Ebsen as Jed, it’s hard to deny that Irene Ryan’s Granny was a key reason for the show’s success. Her bristly edges hid a soft inner core that made her a delightful, zany character, capable of everything from singlehandedly tossing police officers out of her mansion to catching and cooking up raccoons for dinner.
When someone stumbles across a photo of Irene Ryan from the 1960s and then sees her character on The Beverly Hillbillies, one question springs to mind: “How old was Irene Ryan when she played Granny?” As a main characters throughout the nine seasons of The Beverly Hillbillies, Daisy May Moses, better known as “Granny”, was a fixture of ’60s and ’70s television. Jed’s mother-in-law, Granny, is a shotgun-toting, mountain medicine-applying, short-tempered woman who has little patience for the easy, breezy lifestyles of Beverly Hills, California, and always makes sure to let everyone know she’s a country girl at heart.
When someone stumbles across a photo of Irene Ryan from the 1960s and then sees her character on The Beverly Hillbillies, one question springs to mind: “How old was Irene Ryan when she played Granny?” As a main characters throughout the nine seasons of The Beverly Hillbillies, Daisy May Moses, better known as “Granny”, was a fixture of ’60s and ’70s television. Jed’s mother-in-law, Granny, is a shotgun-toting, mountain medicine-applying, short-tempered woman who has little patience for the easy, breezy lifestyles of Beverly Hills, California, and always makes sure to let everyone know she’s a country girl at heart.
Who Is The Beverly Hillbillies’s Irene Ryan
Granny Is Played By A Vaudeville, Radio And Movie Veteran
Irene Ryan played Granny for the entire run of the series, and it’s the role she’s best known for, but she had a respectable career beforehand and an acclaimed one after. Born Irene Noblette in El Paso in 1902 (via The New York Times), Irene met her husband, Tim Ryan, while working in vaudeville, and the Ryans went into radio when vaudeville began drying up. The pair spent most of their careers on radio, hosting “Tim and Irene”, a nationally listened-to podcast.
Later in her career, in the 1940s, Ryan found steady work in movies like Rockabilly Baby as Eunice Johnson, Diary of a Chambermaid as Louise, and Half Angel as Nurse Kay. She also found success on television, with small roles in The Real McCoys, Bringing Up Buddy, and My Three Sons. Irene was not desperate for work, but she still did not have that breakthrough role that would rocket her to stardom. That all changed with her audition for Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies.
