He’s the son of a boxing champion.
As the last surviving cast member of The Beverly Hillbillies, Max Baer Jr. — better known as Jethro Bodine — remains one of the most beloved TV stars of the ’60s. But fans might be surprised to learn that he’s also one of the wealthiest…and his great fortune didn’t come from playing his iconic role.
The son of a boxing heavyweight champion, Baer was two months behind on his rent and living on a diet of milk and not much else when he landed the role of Jethro, as Woman’s World reported. The show’s huge success came as a surprise to Baer.
“The critics have been against it,” he said later. “Nobody likes it but the people. Maybe if the show had come out in 1958, it would have been a bomb.”
Unfortunately, after The Beverly Hillbillies ended in 1971, Baer found it difficult to get work, noting later that he was “pigeonholed as Jethro” and was offered mostly similar parts. That’s when he made what would end up being a very financially wise decision, shifting his focus to producing, writing and directing.
In 1974, Baer wrote, produced and starred in the drama Macon County Line, which became the highest-grossing movie per dollar invested at the time, earning over $30 million at the box office. Two years later, he became one of the first filmmakers to use a popular song as the title and hook for a film, producing Ode to Billy Joe, based on the Bobbie Gentry song “Ode to Billie Joe” for $1.1 million. It grossed $27 million, another massive success at the time.
Later, Baer went after the rights to Madonna’s hit “Like a Virgin,” but ABC tried to prevent him from making the film. Baer sued and won a judgment of over $2 million in the process, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
In the early ’90s, Baer got involved in the gambling industry, buying the sublicensing rights to The Beverly Hillbillies from CBS and installing 65 Beverly Hillbillies-themed slot machines in multiple casinos, further adding to his nest egg. According to Celebrity Net Worth, today, at the age of 87, he has a net worth of $50 million.
“We Baers never wound up exactly the way we hoped we would,” Baer said in 1963.
“My grandfather always wanted to be a prize fighter, but he became a butcher,” he continued. “He did win a slaughtering championship once. Dad had hoped to become an actor and, as everyone knows, he became a boxer. I wanted to be a lawyer and here I am acting. The show has done a lot for my career. The exposure will help insure work for me in the future, too. And someday I hope to prove I can play something besides a hillbilly.”
