Donna Douglas played Elly May Clampett and
Buddy Ebsen played her father, Jed, on "The Beverly Hillbillies."
"I loved doing Elly May," Douglas said. (CBS Photo Archive / CBS via
Getty Images)
By CLAIRE NOLAND
Donna Douglas, who played Elly
May Clampett on “The Beverly Hillbillies,” dies in Louisiana
Donna Douglas, a Louisiana
beauty queen turned actress who tapped into her poor Southern roots for the
role of Elly May Clampett in the long-running TV sitcom "The Beverly
Hillbillies," has died. Her age was variously reported as 81 or 82.
Douglas died of pancreatic
cancer Thursday in Baton Rouge, La., her niece Charlene Smith told the
Associated Press.
The show — about the down-home
Clampetts who strike it rich with an Ozarks oil well and move to California —
became an immediate hit when it began airing on CBS in 1962. It starred Buddy
Ebsen as patriarch Jed, Irene Ryan as Granny, Max Baer Jr. as Jethro and
Douglas as Elly May, a buxom tomboy character who had curly blond pigtails,
wore gingham and blue jeans and loved her "critters."
It was far from a stretch for
Douglas, who was born "way out in the country, outside Baton Rouge,
Louisiana," she told the Toronto Star in 1988. "I really am a country
girl.... My folks were real poor."
After winning beauty contests
in her home state, Douglas headed to New York City in the mid-1950s in search
of modeling jobs and wound up on television as a billboard girl on "The
Steve Allen Show." She took acting lessons and landed a few parts in other
TV series before writer and producer Paul Henning asked her if she thought
she'd be right for his new show, "The Beverly Hillbillies."
"I just looked at him and
grinned," Douglas told AP Hollywood reporter Bob Thomas in 1965.
"Could I handle Elly May? Why, it was just like my own life."
She had to retrieve the
Southern accent she had tried to lose, and she had no trouble with the dogs,
skunks, mountain lion, chimpanzee and other animals Elly May adored on the
series.
"I loved doing Elly
May," the actress would recall. "And, of course, 'The Beverly
Hillbillies' was a story about the American dream. No matter who tried to
slicker us or take advantage of us, we always came out on top. We were never
the losers. We set a good example."
Douglas' other TV appearances
included a memorable 1960 "Twilight Zone" episode, "Eye of the
Beholder," with a "before and after" storyline about a woman who
undergoes multiple operations to change her appearance. Actress Maxine Stuart
played the patient under wraps and Douglas had the "revealed" part.
She also landed a few movie
parts, highlighted by a starring role opposite Elvis Presley in the 1966
riverboat musical "Frankie and Johnny."
After "The Beverly
Hillbillies" ended in 1971, Douglas had a few other acting jobs and worked
in real estate. Eventually she moved back to Louisiana and in her later years
sang gospel music and gave inspirational speeches to church congregations and
Christian organizations.
In 2011 she settled a lawsuit
with Mattel Inc. and CBS Consumer Products after she argued they hadn't sought
her permission to create an Elly May Barbie doll using her image.
"The Beverly
Hillbillies" remained popular with TV viewers in reruns years after
original episodes aired, and Douglas traveled widely to meet fans of the show.
"The two questions I get
all the time are, can I really whistle, and do I really love animals,"
Douglas told USA Today in 1993. "The answer is yes to both."
Douglas, who was married and
divorced twice, is survived by a son, Danny P. Bourgeois, according to the
Associated Press.