Producer Paul Henning almost worked himself to death
“I think I was having withdrawal symptoms.”
It’s a fine line when it comes to being devoted to one’s work. Sure, we all want to do a good job, and that may involve a little extra. We burn the midnight oil at both ends of the candle, in hopes of getting ahead. Sometimes, the effort is recognized, and sometimes we double down and push even harder. Then, one day, we turned around and realized we’ve been swallowed up by a whale. Work has consumed us and there’s little left for the rest of what we love. It’s a tightrope, and doing too much or too little can be a disaster.
This was one of the great struggles in the life of Paul Henning. TV fans will recognize that name from the opening credits of shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. His rural comedies populated a large selection of CBS’ offerings in the sixties, and each show has lived on through reruns, becoming cultural touchstones along the way. There’s no doubt that Henning changed television forever, but at what cost?
In 1964, Henning was one of the busiest men in television, but he still made time to speak with Margaret McManus of The Buffalo News. At the time, he had just been given a grim order from his physician. He was told, with no room for interpretation, to “slow down.”
“I was surprised,” said Henning. “I was never bothered with hypertension, that sort of thing. But I haven’t had a day off since the show went on the air.”
“Last Sunday, just after we’d gotten in, we went out to Bronxville to visit some old friends and I didn’t know what was the matter with me. I felt terrible.
“Here I was, sitting around, no deadline to meet, and I’m supposed to be having a great time, and I could hardly concentrate on the conversation. My head ached. I felt sick. It was the first Sunday in so long that I wasn’t sitting at the typewriter. I think I was having withdrawal symptoms.”
Henning just couldn’t stop. When McManus asked what a less demanding lifestyle could look like, Henning said he often fantasized about writing movies, instead.
It’s not unusual for creators to inject their own lived experiences into the shows they make. Carroll O’Conner cast his son, Hugh, as Officer Lonnie Jameson in his show, In The Heat of the Night. Here’s Lucy featured Lucille Ball with her real-life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. In addition to this, Linda Henning, known for playing Betty Jo in Petticoat Junction, was actually the daughter of series creator, Paul Henning. Henning even instilled his daughter’s real-life love of animals into the character of Betty Jo.
Despite this, Henning actually didn’t write the role specifically for Linda to play. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Linda elaborated, “He wrote the series for Bea Benaderet.” At the time, Linda was already an actress, but her father feared that if he cast her in his own production, he would be accused of nepotism.
Linda explained that it was Bea Benaderet herself who ended up changing his mind on the matter. She said, “Bea went with him to see me in a play I was doing at a neighborhood playhouse. She said, ‘Paul, why in the world won’t you let your daughter try out for Betty Jo?'”
Paul, foreseeing the trending nepo-baby criticism years before it happened, still made Linda go through multiple screen tests before she was eventually given the role. Linda would go on to play Betty Jo throughout the entire duration of the show, even through multiple cast replacements, as well as the death of Bea Benaderet in 1968. Linda said of her death, “It was terrible. The last few shows we knew she was very ill.”
