From 1962 to 1971, The Beverly Hillbillies turned one of television’s simplest ideas into one of its biggest comedy phenomena.

A poor mountain family accidentally discovers oil, becomes fabulously wealthy, packs up its belongings and moves to Beverly Hills.

But there was one problem.

The Clampetts had millions in the bank—and absolutely no intention of becoming Beverly Hills people.

That contrast powered nine seasons of comedy.

Jed Clampett remained humble despite his fortune. Granny trusted mountain medicine more than modern sophistication. Elly May cared more about animals than high society. Jethro Bodine dreamed endlessly of becoming something important, even when he rarely understood what that something required.

Around them stood bankers, secretaries, businessmen and socialites who repeatedly underestimated the family.

More than six decades after the series premiered, those characters remain instantly recognizable to generations of classic television fans.

But the actors behind them followed very different paths.

One found another major television hit.

One reached Broadway shortly before her death.

Another entered politics.

One became associated with one of Hollywood’s darkest tragedies.

And one member of the principal Clampett cast survived long enough to become the final living link to the show’s original family.

Here is what happened to 11 memorable stars of The Beverly Hillbillies after the Clampetts left Beverly Hills.

Buddy Ebsen — Jed Clampett

Buddy Ebsen gave The Beverly Hillbillies something essential.

A calm center.

Jed Clampett might suddenly have millions of dollars, but money never seemed capable of changing who he was.

He remained practical, humble and deeply connected to the values that had guided his family before oil transformed their lives.

That made Jed the perfect contrast to Beverly Hills.

While bankers and socialites became obsessed with the Clampett fortune, Jed often seemed puzzled by the importance everyone else placed on wealth.

Ebsen’s restrained performance made the joke work.

He rarely needed to force the comedy.

A pause, a confused expression or a perfectly timed deadpan response was often enough.

When The Beverly Hillbillies ended in 1971, Ebsen was already deeply identified with Jed.

Yet he managed something many sitcom stars never accomplish.

He found another major television role.

Ebsen became private investigator Barnaby Jones in the long-running detective series of the same name.

The character was dramatically different from Jed Clampett, allowing Ebsen to establish another television identity rather than spend the remainder of his career trapped inside one famous role.

He also explored other creative interests, including writing and music, and eventually returned to the Clampett world for a reunion production.

His entertainment career stretched across an extraordinary portion of American show-business history, reaching back to Broadway in the 1930s.

Ebsen remained active into old age.

He died in 2003 at the age of 95 after respiratory failure.

For many viewers, however, no later role could completely replace the image of Jed Clampett sitting outside his Beverly Hills mansion, surrounded by luxury he never really needed.

Irene Ryan — Granny

If Jed was the calm center of the Clampett household, Granny was the explosion.

Irene Ryan transformed Daisy May “Granny” Moses into one of the most recognizable comedy characters of the 1960s.

Tiny in stature but enormous in personality, Granny could turn almost any situation into a confrontation.

She was fiercely proud of her mountain heritage.

She trusted her own remedies.

She defended her family.

And she had little patience for anyone who suggested that Beverly Hills sophistication was superior to Clampett common sense.

Ryan’s performance was so distinctive that Granny became almost inseparable from the actress.

Her work earned Emmy recognition and helped make her one of the most memorable older women on American television.

But Ryan still had another major achievement ahead of her after The Beverly Hillbillies ended.

She went to Broadway.

Ryan created the role of Berthe in the musical Pippin, earning a Tony Award nomination.

For an actress already famous across America because of television, Broadway offered another form of professional validation.

Tragically, that triumph did not last long.

Ryan suffered a stroke during the show’s successful early run.

She died in 1973 at the age of 70.

Only two years had passed since The Beverly Hillbillies ended.

Yet Granny had already become immortal in reruns.

Decades later, the character’s enormous personality still seems far larger than the woman who played her.

Raymond Bailey — Milburn Drysdale

Milburn Drysdale had one great love.

The Clampetts’ money.

Raymond Bailey turned the Beverly Hills banker into a comic machine built around greed, panic and self-preservation.

Drysdale could behave like an important financial executive one moment and become almost absurdly submissive the next if he believed Jed might withdraw his fortune.

That contradiction fueled countless episodes.

He desperately wanted the Clampetts’ money to remain in his bank.

Unfortunately for Drysdale, keeping that money often meant tolerating the Clampetts themselves.

Bailey’s controlled delivery made Drysdale’s increasingly frantic behavior even funnier.

His partnership with Miss Jane Hathaway became another essential ingredient.

Jane frequently understood the Clampetts better than her employer did, leaving her to manage both the family and Drysdale’s latest panic.

After The Beverly Hillbillies, Bailey continued acting for a relatively short period.

His health eventually deteriorated, and he withdrew from performing.

He died in 1980 at the age of 75.

By then, Milburn Drysdale had become the defining role of his screen career.

And perhaps that was appropriate.

Few television bankers have ever worked harder to keep one family’s money exactly where it was.

Nancy Kulp — Miss Jane Hathaway

Jane Hathaway could have been a simple supporting character.

Nancy Kulp made her indispensable.

As Drysdale’s highly capable secretary, Jane frequently became the sensible bridge between the Clampetts and the strange world of Beverly Hills.

She was intelligent, organized and loyal.

She could understand what Jed was trying to say while simultaneously understanding what Drysdale was trying to manipulate.

Kulp’s understated comic style was crucial.

Rather than competing with the louder personalities around her, she often generated laughs through restraint.

Jane could communicate an entire reaction with a look.

After the series ended, Kulp continued acting.

But her life eventually took a surprising turn away from Hollywood.

She entered politics.

In 1984, Kulp ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Pennsylvania.

She did not win, but the campaign became one of the most unusual post-sitcom chapters among the Beverly Hillbillies cast.

Kulp later became involved in education and served as an artist-in-residence, teaching acting at Juniata College.

She died from cancer in 1991 at the age of 69.

Miss Jane had begun as Drysdale’s secretary.

Nancy Kulp made her something much more memorable.

Bea Benaderet — Cousin Pearl Bodine

Cousin Pearl Bodine helped establish the extended Clampett world during the show’s early years.

Played by veteran performer Bea Benaderet, Pearl was Jethro’s mother and one of the relatives who helped push Jed toward the enormous change awaiting him in California.

Benaderet brought confidence, warmth and comic experience to the role.

Although Pearl’s presence on The Beverly Hillbillies was relatively limited compared with the principal Clampett family, the actress behind her was anything but a minor television performer.

Benaderet had already built an impressive career in radio and television.

Audiences knew her from The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, where she played Blanche Morton.

Animation fans also knew her voice.

She was the original voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones.

Then came another major television success.

Benaderet became the star of Petticoat Junction.

Her move to that series helped create a broader television universe associated with producer Paul Henning’s rural comedies.

Her career remained active until serious illness intervened.

Benaderet died from lung cancer in 1968 at the age of 62.

She never lived to see The Beverly Hillbillies reach its conclusion.

But her television legacy extended far beyond Cousin Pearl.

Few performers of her generation left footprints in radio comedy, animation and live-action television as distinctive as hers.

Harriet MacGibbon — Margaret Drysdale

If Milburn Drysdale feared losing the Clampetts’ money, his wife Margaret often seemed horrified that the Clampetts existed anywhere near her social world.

Harriet MacGibbon turned Mrs. Drysdale into an ideal comic opponent for the family.

Margaret valued status.

Appearance mattered.

Social hierarchy mattered.

Beverly Hills manners mattered.

Then the Clampetts arrived.

They had more money than almost everyone around them but showed little interest in behaving the way wealthy people were supposedly expected to behave.

For Margaret, this was almost unbearable.

MacGibbon’s polished delivery made the contrast work beautifully.

She looked and sounded like someone accustomed to carefully controlled social environments.

The Clampetts repeatedly destroyed that control.

Behind the character was an actress with extensive theatrical experience.

MacGibbon had spent years working on the New York stage before establishing herself in film and television.

She continued appearing as Margaret Drysdale through the later 1960s and eventually retired.

MacGibbon died in 1987 at the age of 81.

Whenever Mrs. Drysdale appeared, viewers knew the Clampetts were probably about to destroy another piece of carefully protected Beverly Hills dignity.

Sharon Tate — Janet Trego

Looking back at Sharon Tate’s appearances on The Beverly Hillbillies carries a sadness that audiences at the time could never have anticipated.

Tate appeared as Janet Trego, a secretary at the Commerce Bank.

Her youthful glamour immediately attracted Jethro’s attention and provided another opportunity for his famously misplaced romantic confidence.

At the time, Tate was still developing her career.

The Beverly Hillbillies gave her valuable television exposure before she moved toward increasingly prominent film roles.

She appeared in Eye of the Devil.

Then came The Fearless Vampire Killers.

Her performance in Valley of the Dolls helped establish her as one of Hollywood’s promising young actresses and brought major recognition.

Tate seemed positioned for a much larger career.

She never had the opportunity to experience it.

Her life was violently cut short in 1969.

She was only 26.

Because of what happened, discussions of Tate’s career are often dominated by the circumstances of her death.

But her appearances on The Beverly Hillbillies preserve something different.

They capture a young performer before tragedy became permanently attached to her name—a Hollywood newcomer whose future still appeared wide open.

Donna Douglas — Elly May Clampett

Elly May Clampett became one of the defining television characters of the 1960s.

Donna Douglas gave her beauty without vanity, innocence without weakness and an almost limitless affection for animals.

Elly May could seem completely out of place in Beverly Hills.

That was exactly the point.

She represented a kind of sincerity that the sophisticated people surrounding the Clampetts often lacked.

Douglas’s natural warmth made the character enormously popular.

Elly May was glamorous enough to become a television icon, but the character herself rarely seemed interested in glamour.

She preferred animals.

After The Beverly Hillbillies ended, Douglas continued making occasional television appearances.

But acting gradually became less central to her life.

She increasingly devoted herself to gospel music, church appearances, inspirational speaking and writing children’s books.

Unlike performers who spend decades attempting to escape a famous character, Douglas remained closely connected to Elly May and the fans who loved her.

She embraced the role that had defined her career.

Douglas died from pancreatic cancer in 2015 at the age of 82.

For classic television viewers, however, Elly May remains frozen in time.

Young.

Cheerful.

Surrounded by animals.

And completely unimpressed by the rules of Beverly Hills society.

Max Baer Jr. — Jethro Bodine

Jethro Bodine had confidence.

What he usually lacked was a realistic understanding of almost everything else.

Max Baer Jr. turned Jethro into one of the show’s greatest sources of physical comedy.

Jethro was big, enthusiastic and endlessly ambitious.

He wanted careers.

Status.

Romance.

Recognition.

Unfortunately, his plans rarely matched his abilities.

Baer understood how to make Jethro ridiculous without making him impossible to like.

There was something almost innocent about the character’s enormous self-belief.

But playing Jethro so successfully created a serious problem afterward.

Typecasting.

Audiences knew Baer as Jethro.

Hollywood knew Baer as Jethro.

Escaping that image proved difficult.

So Baer changed direction.

Rather than relying exclusively on acting roles, he moved into writing, directing, producing and business.

One of his biggest successes came through the independently produced film Macon County Line.

The project became a significant commercial success and demonstrated that Baer possessed abilities far beyond the character for which television remembered him.

According to the supplied account, Baer is now 88 and retired from regular acting.

He also holds a bittersweet distinction.

He is the last surviving principal cast member of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Jed is gone.

Granny is gone.

Elly May is gone.

But Jethro remains.

For a series built around family, that fact gives Baer’s survival an especially emotional significance to longtime fans.

Frank Wilcox — John Brewster

Without John Brewster, there might never have been a Beverly Hills chapter for the Clampetts.

Frank Wilcox played the oil executive whose company became connected to the discovery that transformed Jed’s financial life.

Brewster occupied an unusual position among the businessmen surrounding the Clampetts.

Jed trusted him.

That immediately separated Brewster from characters who viewed the family primarily through the size of its bank account.

Wilcox brought calm authority to the role.

But The Beverly Hillbillies represented only a small portion of an enormous career.

He was a prolific character actor whose résumé stretched across hundreds of film and television appearances.

His credits included productions such as Perry Mason and The Untouchables, among many others.

Wilcox continued working until close to the end of his life.

He died in 1974 at the age of 66.

John Brewster may not have generated the chaos of Granny or Jethro.

But within the Clampett story, he played a fundamental role.

He helped open the door that led from the hills to Beverly Hills.

Why The Beverly Hillbillies Still Works

The premise of The Beverly Hillbillies sounds like a joke that should have lasted a season.

Instead, it lasted nine.

The reason was not simply the money.

It was the reversal hidden underneath it.

The supposedly unsophisticated Clampetts repeatedly entered a world filled with wealthy, educated and socially powerful people.

Yet the outsiders were often the ones who possessed the clearest common sense.

Jed did not need Beverly Hills to teach him how to treat people.

Granny did not care whether society approved of her.

Elly May did not measure happiness through status.

And even Jethro’s absurd ambitions were usually more innocent than the calculated schemes surrounding the family’s fortune.

The Clampetts were rich.

But money was rarely what made them valuable.

That gave the comedy a surprising warmth.

The audience could laugh at their misunderstandings without believing the family itself was fundamentally foolish.

Sometimes the joke was actually on Beverly Hills.

More Than Six Decades Later, the Clampetts Are Still Home

The actors eventually went in very different directions.

Buddy Ebsen found another television institution with Barnaby Jones.

Irene Ryan reached Broadway before her life ended only two years after The Beverly Hillbillies.

Raymond Bailey withdrew as his health declined.

Nancy Kulp went from television comedy to congressional politics and education.

Bea Benaderet became central to another classic sitcom.

Harriet MacGibbon retired after a long career.

Sharon Tate’s promising future ended tragically at only 26.

Donna Douglas found purpose through faith, music and inspirational work.

Max Baer Jr. reinvented himself as a producer and businessman when typecasting made acting difficult.

Frank Wilcox remained one of Hollywood’s prolific supporting performers.

Today, according to the supplied account, Baer is the last surviving principal member of the cast.

But television creates its own strange form of permanence.

Press play on an old episode and nothing has changed.

Jed is still sitting calmly while everyone else panics.

Granny is still preparing another questionable remedy.

Elly May is still surrounded by animals.

Jethro still believes his latest ridiculous plan is brilliant.

Drysdale is still terrified that Jed might move his money.

Miss Jane is still trying to keep everyone under control.

And the Clampetts are still living inside a mansion that never managed to change them.

More than sixty years have passed since The Beverly Hillbillies first introduced America to a family that became rich almost overnight.

The actors grew older.

Most have passed away.

The television world that created them disappeared long ago.

But the central joke remains wonderfully intact.

The Clampetts arrived in Beverly Hills believing they had a lot to learn about sophisticated people.

Nine seasons later, it often seemed Beverly Hills had far more to learn from them.