Donna Douglas, who died at 81 in 2015, was an honest-to-goodness Southern Belle who displayed a natural beauty and talent in her portrayal of the hollering, rope-wearing, whistle-happy, and critter-cuddling Elly May Clampett on the 1960s classic TV hit, The Beverly Hillbillies.
Douglas also loved animals in real life and had many of the same sensibilities as Elly May. As she explained in the book, Glamour, Gidgets and the Girl Next Door, “Elly just had a good sense of family, and knew right from wrong she had the same upbringing that I did; back then you had respect for your parents, elders, and community. We had the same values, morals, and love of critters. They are like children; they can sense whether a person is sincere; they are a good judge of character.”
“We lived so far out in the country, back of a dirt road,” Douglas continued, “…my mom would place me and my brother on a horse and take us to our grandparents that way. Eventually, we moved into town, Baton Rouge, where I graduated high school. I was the only girl in my family, an older brother, and all male cousins. I was getting ready for Jethro [as played by Max Baer, Jr. on Hillbillies] long before we ever met.”
“I never had any desire to be an actress,” Douglas added, “…just a wife and perhaps a mother; those were my thoughts growing up. I only had a pinch of modeling back home prior to leaving for New york. Once there, I slowly built up my portfolio book with photos, got a job, here, a job there… illustration modeling.”
“I knew I didn’t want to be a fashion model,” she said. “But I could hold up a tube of toothpaste and smile into the camera.”
After The Beverly Hillbillies ended in 1971, Douglas became a very successful realtor. But through the decades, she gained third and fourth-generation fans who discovered and rediscovered The Beverly Hillbillies.
“People tell me all the time, they wish television shows were made like that today,” she said. “It makes me happy and proud to have been a part of that. Those were good years for me.”
Years that were also distinguished by Elly May’s famous whistle, which Douglas said, “was all mine, from childhood.”
In the later years of her life, Douglas would charm fans at various Hollywood collector shows across the country. She would autograph photos of her days on The Beverly Hillbillies, whistle, and say things like, “Ya’ll come back now! Hear?!” and “This has been a Filmways Presentation!” which were two of the show’s closing sign-offs.
