Posted on 01/02/2015 10:47:41 AM PST by BunnySlippers
Donna Douglas -- who famously portrayed Elly May Clampett on the legendary 60s TV series "The Beverly Hillbillies" -- passed away Thursday at her home in Louisiana with friends and family by her side.
Douglas' granddaughter confirmed the death to TMZ.
Donna starred on "The Beverly Hillbillies" for all nine seasons and even returned for the 1981 reunion TV movie.
A classic show.
In all the years since, I cannot think of a sitcom which was better. Two and a Half men and Big Bang Theory are pretty consistently funny, and I think Chuck Lorre and his team probably come closest to being a match for Paul Henning and his team.
Nobody else even comes close. R.I.P Donna Douglas. We will miss you.
Max Baer Jr is now the last surviving cast member.
Yep and she came out as a lez later in life.
Looks like Jethro is still ticking and made millions of $ as a Producer
They were all pretty much pulled out of Lil Abner, from back in the 30’s and 40’s.
Yeah you are so right I don’t understand that
So, did you become a brain surgeon, or a fry cook?
CBS Chairman Bill Paley was horrified at the prospect of the show on his network - until he saw how much money it would make him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Aubrey
His formula was characterized by a CBS executive as “broads, bosoms, and fun,”[3] resulting in such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan’s Island, despised by the critics – and CBS chairman William S. Paley – but extremely popular with viewers. While Aubrey had a great feel for what would be successful with viewers, he had nothing but contempt for them. “The American public is something I fly over,” he said.[14] His former boss at ABC, Oliver E. Treyz, said at programming “Jim Aubrey was one of the most effective ever, from the standpoint of delivering what the public wanted and making money. He was the best program judge in the business.”
Aubrey said in 1986 of Paley and his programming choices:
I’d gone to CBS, and I’d become convinced Beverly Hillbillies was going to work. Bill Paley wasn’t convinced. Bill has this great sense of propriety. Putting aside the Sarnoffs and all the other great names of broadcasting, Paley stood – stands – head and shoulders above everyone else. He had this blasting genius of instinctively looking at a show and knowing if it should be on the air. He could also be ruthless and distant ... But Bill was intuitive about both the business and creative sides of TV. And he genuinely disliked Beverly Hillbillies. I put it on the schedule anyway.[4]
“The hucksters’ huckster,” David Halberstam labeled him, “whose greatest legacy to television was a program called The Beverly Hillbillies, a series so demented and tasteless that it boggles the mind”[15] Columnist Murray Kempton described The Beverly Hillbillies as, “a confrontation of the characters of John Steinbeck with the environment of Spyros Skouras,”[16] the extravagant chairman of Twentieth Century Fox. But regardless of what anyone said about Hillbillies, the public loved it. The Nielsen ratings showed 57 million were watching the show – one in three Americans.
He was also the son of the one time heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Max Baer......
A kind and decent Christian lady by all accounts.
She will be missed. RIP
Paul Henning created the Beverly Hillbillies, and if you kept up with it, he did so to poke fun at "big city folk" who had lost touch with what was really important in life. He said they never really figured out that the sophisticated city folk were the actual butt of the jokes and not the down to earth Hillbillies.
When asked to create another winning sitcom, he decided to flip the script. Big City lawyer goes to live in a Rural community. "Green Acres." He was still making fun of the pretentious and "sophisticated" city folk with this one too.
When asked to create yet another winning sitcom, he didn't have another idea till his wife suggested the premise for "Petticoat Junction."
Your Freudian slip is showing.
OMG, those radio ads Buddy Ebsen cut for Bud Shuster to use against Nancy Kulp were just hysterical!
“She’s REEEEEEEEEEAL Liberal! Even by Hollywood standards!”
Shuster wiped the map with her.
Oops!
Oh boy. Thank you.
“Man are we all getting old....”
Yeah, but then, whats the alternative.
Double naught spy...
Critters weep.
Typical secular liberals. While pursuing the sophisticated and tasteful, they descend into soulless filth and degradation.
“Pearl Pearl Pearl...wontcha give my heart a whirl...” The show introduced the country to Flatt and Scruggs. Fine pickin’ anyway you look at it.
Thanks for your heaping helping of hospitality Ms. Douglas. R.I.P.
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