TLDR: The Beverly Hillbillies ran for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and at its peak drew 60 million viewers. Of the four principal cast members, three are gone — Buddy Ebsen died in 2003, Irene Ryan in 1973, and Donna Douglas in 2015. Max Baer Jr. is the last surviving member of the original cast at 88 years old.
The Beverly Hillbillies premiered on CBS on September 26, 1962, and became one of the most watched shows in the history of American television almost immediately.
The premise was simple: an Ozarks family strikes oil, moves to Beverly Hills, and refuses to understand why any of it matters.
The comedy came from the collision between their unshakeable values and the social absurdity around them.
It was also part of a larger creative universe. Creator Paul Henning linked the show to Petticoat Junction and Green Acres through the fictional town of Hooterville and shared characters.
Frank Cady played Sam Drucker in all three. Bea Benaderet played Cousin Pearl in the Hillbillies before anchoring Petticoat Junction.
The three shows formed the most successful rural comedy block in network television history before CBS cancelled all of them in 1971 as part of the rural purge.
Here is what happened to the cast.
Buddy Ebsen Was Jed Clampett
Buddy Ebsen played Jed Clampett, the wise and decent patriarch who held the family together through nine seasons of Beverly Hills chaos.
He brought a dignity to the role that gave the more eccentric performers around him room to breathe. Without Jed as a grounded center, Granny, Jethro, and Elly May would have been a circus.
What most viewers never knew was that Ebsen had nearly died on an MGM film set in 1938 when aluminum dust from his Tin Man makeup coated his lungs during production of The Wizard of Oz.
He spent two weeks in an oxygen tent. MGM replaced him with Jack Haley without public explanation.
He was also blacklisted by Louis B. Mayer for refusing an exclusive studio contract. He didn’t become a household name until he was 54.
After the Hillbillies ended he launched Barnaby Jones, which ran for eight seasons. He died in 2003 at 95.
Irene Ryan Was Granny
Irene Ryan played Daisy May Granny Moses, the shotgun-wielding, moonshine-brewing hillbilly matriarch who performed slapstick physical comedy well into her sixties.
She had been in show business since vaudeville in the 1920s and brought half a century of comedic discipline to every scene she was in.
After the show ended she made her Broadway debut at nearly 70 in Bob Fosse’s Pippin, stopping the show eight times a week with the number “No Time at All.” She received a Tony nomination.
On March 10, 1973, she suffered a stroke onstage during a performance. She died six weeks later of an inoperable brain tumor at 70.
She left her entire estate to establish the Irene Ryan Foundation, which still funds acting scholarships through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival today.
Max Baer Jr. Was Jethro
Max Baer Jr. played Jethro Bodine, Jed’s nephew, a physically enormous and thoroughly oblivious young man who cycled through career aspirations — double-naught spy, brain surgeon, movie producer — with complete and serene confidence.
He appeared in 273 of the show’s 274 episodes and also played Jethro’s twin sister Jethrine in early episodes, in drag.
He is the son of Max Baer Sr., the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. After the show ended he produced Macon County Line for $225,000 and grossed $30 million, one of the best returns on investment in film history at the time.
He spent the next three decades trying to build a Beverly Hillbillies-themed casino in Nevada that never got built. He is 88 years old as of 2025 and the last surviving member of the original cast.
Donna Douglas Was Elly May
Donna Douglas played Elly May Clampett, Jed’s daughter, whose combination of physical strength, animal-loving sweetness, and total indifference to Beverly Hills social norms made her one of the show’s most beloved characters.
Creator Paul Henning partially based the character on Linda Kaye Henning’s tomboy personality.
After the show ended Douglas largely stepped back from acting and became deeply involved in Christian ministry, recording gospel music and speaking at churches across the country. She appeared occasionally in reunion specials and remained close to her surviving castmates.
She was with Max Baer Jr. when they visited Buddy Ebsen in the hospital shortly before his death in 2003. She died on January 1, 2015, at 81.
Raymond Bailey Was Mr. Drysdale
Raymond Bailey played Milburn Drysdale, the Beverly Hills banker obsessed with the Clampetts’ oil fortune, across all nine seasons. His barely contained desperation around the family’s money provided a consistent comedic counterpoint to the Clampetts’ complete indifference to wealth.
Bailey had a long career in film and television before the show and continued working sporadically afterward. He died of a heart attack in 1980 at 75.
Nancy Kulp Was Miss Hathaway
Nancy Kulp played Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale’s efficient, long-suffering secretary who developed an unrequited admiration for Jethro. The role required a specific kind of deadpan and Kulp delivered it with precision across all nine seasons.
In 1984 she ran for Congress in Pennsylvania as a Democrat, which led to a notable public disagreement with Buddy Ebsen, who was a committed conservative Republican and campaigned against her. She lost the race. She died in 1991 at 69.
The Hooterville Connection
The Beverly Hillbillies shared a creative universe with Paul Henning’s two other rural comedies.
Bea Benaderet, who played Cousin Pearl in the first season of the Hillbillies, went on to anchor Petticoat Junction as Kate Bradley until her death from lung cancer in 1968.
Frank Cady played Sam Drucker in all three shows. The three series crossed over regularly and shared the same fictional geography centered on the town of Hooterville.
All three were cancelled in the same year by CBS, which decided that rural-themed programming no longer fit the demographic it was trying to attract. The Beverly Hillbillies was still drawing substantial audiences when it was cancelled.
For fans of the Green Acres cast and the Petticoat Junction cast, those pages cover the full stories of both shows.
For the same era and the same audience, the Gunsmoke cast and the Lawrence Welk Show cast cover two more defining programs of mid-century American television.
