Buddy Ebsen was on the road to retirement when he landed ”The Beverly Hillbillies”
“By the time I finished laughing, I had signed a contract.”
Not to generalize, but if Buddy Ebsen is in a television series, it’s probably going to be good. We mean no disrespect to today’s actors, who seem to be getting younger by the minute, but Ebsen brought a level of talent and confidence to each of his roles that only a mature actor can.
Ebsen was fifty-four when he starred in The Beverly Hillbillies as Jed Clampett and was even older when he took on the title role of Barnaby Jones.
In many interviews throughout his career, Ebsen demonstrated a fire and energy that rivaled those half his age and showed no indication that he’d be slowing down his acting career for anything.
However, according to an interview with the Camarillo Star, Ebsen did have plans to move towards an early form of retirement… right before he got the role of a lifetime on The Beverly Hillbillies.
Ebsen explained, “I was planning to semi-retire in 1962, and intended to write and just act in things I wanted to do.” While Ebsen’s semi-retirement still sounds like a full-time career, given the actor’s speed, his version of retirement might be slowing things down his way.
Anyhow, any and all plans of slowing down were thrown out the window when Ebsen was handed a new script for The Beverly Hillbillies.
He said, “My agent handed me this script, and I started reading, and laughing, and by the time I finished laughing, I had signed a contract.”
Even after The Beverly Hillbillies was canceled, Ebsen continued to write his own work, as well as continue acting. Eventually, he landed Barnaby Jones on the very network that had previously canceled The Beverly Hillbillies, CBS.
Ebsen spoke of it and said, “I didn’t like Silverman for a while (when the show was canceled in 1971), but when he picked up Barnaby Jones, I liked him again.”
In order to be a good entertainment artist, you must first be a student of the industry. This means that if you’re looking to ensure that your next television project will be a success, one of the best things to do is look back at previously successful series and highlight why people loved it as much as they did. While lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice, creators who take inspiration from previous successes have the analytical eye that is likely to increase their own prosperity.
When creating The Beverly Hillbillies, Paul Henning had one specific stipulation in mind for the actor playing Jed Clampett: He had to be tall.
According to an interview with The Orlando Sentinel, Buddy Ebsen, known for his excellent acting and looming stature, was actually able to win the role because of his height.
Ebsen said, “I got the job because I was tall, believe it or not.”
He explained, “Paul Henning, the genius who created The Beverly Hillbillies, was talking with some people about what made a successful television show. They considered the people who were successful. Gunsmoke had James Arness, Wagon Train had a tall guy. They said , ‘Buddy Ebsen is tall.’ So I got the job.”
In an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel, Ebsen said he stood at over six feet tall, a feat he achieved “quite young.” Obviously, his height wasn’t the only factor that went into the decision to cast Ebsen, but the actor himself was already aware that there was something special about The Beverly Hillbillies, even if he had no idea just how successful it would eventually become.
Ebsen said, “When you pick a show, it’s like a baseball player getting up to bat. You look for a good one, pick it and pray. You have no idea how far it’s going, but you know it looked good at the time”.
The actor stated, “This show looked good. I laughed and I thought it had a good chance, and it paid off.”
