What Happened to ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ Cast? Say Hello Again to Jed, Granny, Jethro and Elly May
One of the biggest classic TV comedy hits of the 1960s was The Beverly Hillbillies and its fish out of the cement pond story of the Clampetts — Jed (Buddy Ebsen), Granny (Irene Ryan), Jethro (Max Baer Jr.) and Elly May (Donna Douglas), which ran from 1962 to to 1971 on CBS.
The premise of the show is essentially the idea that a family of hillbillies strikes it rich in oil, moves into a Beverly Hills mansion and tries to live among the locals. Naturally, they’re as out of place as, say, The Addams Family or The Munsters and, like them, haven’t got a clue. Added into the mix is their money-obsessed banker, Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey), who is desperate to keep their $96 million in his bank, and forces his secretary, Jane Hathaway (Nancy Kulp), to carry out every whim — no matter how outlandish — the Clampetts have.
The Beverly Hillbillies was created by Paul Henning, who also developed Petticoat Junction and Green Acres (resulting in crossovers between all three shows). In an interview with the New York Daily News back in 1962, he said of the conception of the series, “As a kid, I used to go hiking and camping in hillbilly country, and on these treks, I was fascinated by the mountain people I met. I genuinely got to love these simple, goodhearted people, and I knew that someday I would try and write about them with all the warmth and humor that are characteristically theirs. Someday is now.”
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Like Gilligan’s Island that would follow it, The Beverly Hillbillies was pretty much derided by the critics, but was a hit with the audience through most of its run. In reflecting on the success, he explained to the Lancaster New Era in 1963, “I think we stuck to what we set out to do: make a funny show. Success in this business is 99 percent luck and we had it in many ways — the selection of a perfect cast, especially. Also, our timing was good. The country was ready for a show like The Hillbillies, where it might not have been two years ago. I think it is the kind of humor that appeals to the broad area of America that lies outside the three major city areas. The urban people also enjoy it, but they don’t want to admit it.”
“A government official,” he added, “who tours all over the country put a finger on it. He wrote us and said in the South and in small towns, people watch The Hillbillies with the shades up. In the cities they watch it, but keep the shades down.”
To get reacquainted with Jed, Granny, Jethro, Elly May, Buddy, Irene, Max and Donna, keep scrolling.
He was the original choice for the Tin Man in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz and wrapped up playing private detective Barnaby Jones in 1980 after eight seasons, and went on from there. And, in between, there were many films and other television series, including, of course, The Beverly Hillbillies, in which he starred as family patriarch Jed Clampett. That’s some career!
Born Christian Ludolf Ebsen Jr. on April 2, 1908, in Belleville, Illinois, his father was a Danish dance choreographer and his mother a painter. When he was 10, the family moved to Palm Beach County in Florida and, then, Orlando. While living there, Buddy and his sisters (four of them) learned how to dance at the dance studio operated by their father.
Graduating from high school in 1926, his mind was fairly focused on a career in medicine and to this end attended the University of Florida in 1926, followed by Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, from 1927 to 1928. But then family financial difficulties forced him to drop out when he was 20. At that point, he thought he would give professional dancing a try and moved to New York City — with only a few dollars in his pocket. He and sister Vilma decided to perform a dance act in vaudeville under the name “The Baby Astaires.” They managed to get to Broadway in the musicals Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, Whoopee and Flying Colors, which led them to what was considered the top of vaudeville, New York’s Palace Theater.
“My first job was as a soda jerk, but I knew I could do better,” Buddy told the Akron Beacon Journal in 1964. “I read an ad for dancers for a Broadway show. I auditioned and got the job. I had taken dance lessons from my father when I was a kid, but quit when I was 12 because I felt dancing was sissified. Later I was mighty glad I had taken those lessons.”
MGM signed the duo to a contract in 1935 and they made the film Broadway Melody of 1936 (released in 1935), but an undisclosed contractual issue led Vilma to drop out of the business — spending most of her life running her own dance studio. Buddy continued acting in different films, some of them in the musical genre and others not. Interestingly, his dance style was considered so unique that Walt Disney himself used Buddy, captured his dancing on film as a model for movement for Mickey Mouse in early cartoons from the studio.
After making a number of films for MGM — and as noted above — he was hired to play the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Buddy reflected to The Shreveport Journal in 1984, “In Oz I was supposed to play the Scarecrow first. Ray Bolger must have been a really good salesman, because pretty quick I was either promoted or demoted to the Tin Man. At first they wanted me to dance in this experimental tin suit. I got out of that fast.” Unfortunately, 10 days in he had to drop out due to an allergic reaction to the aluminum dust that was part of the makeup. Jack Haley replaced him.
His time with MGM came to an end in 1938 following a fallout with that studio’s head, when Louis B. Mayer summoned him into his office and told Buddy that in order to give him the kind of parts he was looking for, MGM would have to “own” him, to which he replied, “I’ll tell you what kind of fool I am, Mr. Mayer. I can’t be owned.” He went into the Army during World War II, he said in 1964, “And when I returned, I went to New York to do a revival of Showboat. I went back to Hollywood in 1946 and tried to resume my career there, but everyone kept asking me where I had been. I tried to tell them there had been a war, but it didn’t make an impression. It was as though they resented me for having left Hollywood.”
He turned to television in 1949 and appeared on an episode of The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre, followed by more anthology and guest star appearances. His career got a major shot in the arm when he co-starred alongside Fess Parker on the Disney miniseries Davy Crockett (1954 to 1955). After that, there was the adventure series set during the French and Indian War of the 1700s, Northwest Passage (1958 to 1959). Feature films Frontier Rangers (1959) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) as well as more TV guest appearances followed. Then came The Beverly Hillbillies.
Talking to the Battle Creek Enquirer of Battle Creek, Michigan in 1963, he described his role as Jed Clampett this way: “I’m a straight man in the series. Jed is essentially not a comedy character, so my job is to set up the situations and the lines. Occasionally Jed will make a droll observation and sometimes when the show is slanted toward him, I’ll play in a comedy scene. But for the most part, I feed lines to the others.”
“At base,” he added, “Jed is a dignified man and an intelligent man, although he may not be long on education. I like him and I like Beverly Hillbillies and I think that even if I have the chance to do other things, I could play Jed for as long as it is palatable to the public.”
As soon as a year later, while his attitude hadn’t really changed, one could sense something different. “There’s no doubt about it, television is an actor killer,” he stated. “We work too hard and use too much material. If I could uninvent anything, it would be television. No foolin’. But we’re stuck with television and have to make the best of it. If I had my way, I’d spend all my time working in the theater. My second choice would be to spend six months in the theater, six months, making movies, but there’s not enough work in the theater or movies to support all the performers. I could have had enough work in movies to make a good living, but television has given me the opportunity to make a better living. I have a home about three miles from Los Angeles and a big boat to go with it. Television didn’t get them for me, but it will sure help me keep them.”
It wasn’t long before Buddy was back into weekly television, achieving great popularity yet again starring as private detective Barnaby Jones from 1973 to 1980. Unlike the stars of many successful shows, the audience took to him in this new role. In 1972 he talked about the series with The Lowell Sun, explaining, “I play a retired detective whose son is killed on a case. So I return to work to avenge my son’s death and stay on the job.” As to bringing freshness to a genre that had already seemed played out by that time, he said, “It isn’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. The stories are simple and sometimes not so simple, a matter of good against evil. That’s all any drama is really about whether it’s a half-hour or three hours. The audience sits in a theater or in front of a television set to see how it’s going to come out. As for Barnaby, he’s a brand new man — not related in any way to roles I’ve played before. He’s a contemporary man who feels at home in almost any surroundings.”
From 1984 to 1985 he joined the cast of the detective series Matt Houston, playing series star Lee Horsley’s uncle. “Since Barnaby, I’ve been reading a lot of series ideas,” he told the Tampa Bay Times, “but none of them seemed viable. I talked to the producer, Duke Vincent, about it and it sounded like an interesting job and I took it. Roy Houston is cool, except when it comes to the subject of forcible retirement. He’s sharp, a snappy dresser, he’s got a great sense of humor and he enjoys his work. If there’s a little danger mixed in his work, that just makes it more interesting.” After Matt Houston, Buddy took on a few more jobs here and there, but for the most part, retired.
The way he told it, Buddy lived life by a pretty simple philosophy. “I feel that any person who is an American citizen with eyesight and a reasonable amount of health, is a billionaire,” he said in 1970. “You have to be able to reduce your problems to one thing: something that you like to do, and become the best one at it. Something that doesn’t give you heartburn and become so skilled at it that you can work. And after work, there’s love and laughter. If you solve those three concepts, then you’ve got it made.”
Born Jessie Irene Nobitt on October 17, 1902, in El Paso, Texas, she got her first taste of “stardom” at the age of 11 when she took part in an amateur talent show in San Francisco. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the support of her Irish mother, who was fond of saying, “If you ever encounter the Devil, it would backstage.” At the age of 20 she married Tim Ryan, a writer-comedian, and the two of them created and performed a vaudeville act.
