The last Clampett still sitting at the supper table is alone now, and at 88 years old, Max Baer Jr. is finally ready to share the full story of the woman he called his cousin for nine seasons. The man who played Jethro Bodine, the big-hearted lug with the sixth-grade education who struck it rich in Beverly Hills, has spent decades fielding questions about the show that defined his life.

But it is the memory of Donna Douglas, the actress who played Ellie May, that carries the most weight now, especially in the wake of her death in 2015 and the final message she left behind for him. “Tell Maxie, I thought I was going to get better,” she said, words that still hang in the air like a ghost from the Ozarks.

To understand how Max saw Donna, you have to understand where he came from, a world of boxing gloves and quiet sorrow that shaped his view of loyalty and loss. He was born in Oakland, California, the son of Max Baer Sr. , the heavyweight champion of the world who once knocked out Primo Carnera in front of 60,000 screaming fans.

But the champ carried a secret sorrow that never left him, a shadow that followed him into every dressing room and training camp. Back in 1930, a young fighter named Frankie Campbell died after a bout with him, and Max Sr. had stayed by the man’s side until the ambulance came, holding his hand as life slipped away.

Max Jr. once remembered the advice his father gave him, words that would echo through his own career in the brutal world of entertainment. “The Bible says it is far better to give than to receive,” his dad told him.

“So get the heck out of the fight business.”

Max listened to that advice, trading the ring for the classroom and earning a business degree from the University of Santa Clara. He was doing his military service in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1959 when he heard over the radio that his father had died of a heart attack, a moment that left him reeling at just 21 years old. Meanwhile, down in Louisiana, a girl named Doris Ioni Smith was growing up about as far from Hollywood as a body can get, in a world of bayous and pine trees that would later become her trademark.

She was born in the little community of Pride near Baton Rouge, where her family didn’t have much in the way of money but made up for it in love and chaos. With an older brother and a pack of boy cousins around, she was a tomboy from the start, running, climbing, and digging in the dirt until she came home sweaty and happy. She was forever dragging home turtles, frogs, stray dogs, and baby birds that needed feeding, a habit that would later define her most famous character.

In high school, she was a star on the softball team, a fact that surprised no one who ever saw her wrestle a suitor to the ground on national television. She married young, had a son named Dany, and by 1954, she was divorced and raising him on her own, a single mother in an era when that carried a heavy stigma. Her friends kept telling her she was too pretty to sit at home, and in 1957, she finally entered a beauty pageant and won Miss Baton Rouge.

Then she won Miss New Orleans too, and with three months of savings in her pocket, she made up her mind to go to New York with nothing but determination and a dream. There was just one small hitch, she had never been on an airplane in her life, and the thought of flying terrified her more than any Hollywood producer ever would.

New York didn’t roll out the red carpet, but it opened a side door for the girl from Pride, Louisiana. Doris, now Donna Douglas, posed for toothpaste ads, then landed a job on NBC as the letters girl on the Perry Como show and later the billboard girl on the Steve Allen show. Picture Vanna White, only 30 years early and with a Louisiana draw that could charm the snakes out of the swamp.

Reporters and photographers named her Miss Byline, and she wore the title on the Ed Sullivan show, a badge of honor in the cutthroat world of 1950s television. Small acting parts followed and she took them all, from a sorority girl on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet to a bit part in Love Come Back with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. On Mr.

Ed, she shared an episode with a lanky young cowboy actor named Clint Eastwood, a meeting of two legends before either knew what fame really meant.

But the part that truly changed her life was one where for most of the episode, the audience never even saw her face, a twist of fate that would set her on a collision course with destiny. In 1960, she appeared in the Twilight Zone episode called “Eye of the Beholder,” and if you have seen it, you have never forgotten it. A young woman lies in a hospital bed with her head wrapped in bandages, desperate for an operation that will make her look normal in a world that has rejected her.

For most of the episode, another actress, Maxine Stewart, plays her under the gauze, hiding the face that would launch a thousand sitcoms. Then the bandages come off and the camera reveals Donna Douglas, a strikingly beautiful woman, while the doctors and nurses gasp in horror. We finally see their faces twisted and pig-like, and we understand that in this world, she is the one who is considered ugly, a profound commentary on beauty that still resonates today.

The closing narration reminds us, as you might guess, that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and it is still ranked among the greatest episodes Rod Serling ever made. Television producers took notice of the girl with the unforgettable face, and one of them, a Missouri-born writer named Paul Henning, was about to cook up a show about a family of Ozark Mountain folks who strike oil and move to the fanciest zip code in America. More than 500 young women turned out to read for the part of Ellie May Clampett, a role that would define a generation of television viewers.

Donna remembered standing in line for hours and saying one line before hearing, “Thank you. We’ll call you,” the standard brush-off that sent most actresses home in tears. But she kept getting called back until only a handful were left, each round more grueling than the last.

On the final day, the producers asked if she was good with animals, and she said sure, having had lots of pets growing up in the bayou. Then they asked if she had ever milked a goat, and in her mind, she was thinking about cows, so she said yes without missing a beat. They pulled back a curtain, and there stood a goat, a moment that could have ended her career before it began.

Years later, she explained it with a perfect deadpan that became her signature. “I had milked cows before,” she said. “I figured they were equipped the same, so I just went on over and did it.”

That combination of grit and grace was pure Donna Douglas, a woman who never let fear stop her from doing what needed to be done.

Max’s own audition was a little less wholesome, a story he has told with relish for decades. He was living on $55 a week in unemployment insurance, a struggling actor in a town that ate dreams for breakfast. On the day of his screen test, Irene Ryan, who would play Granny, took the nervous kid to lunch and they had a couple of martinis to steady his nerves.

When he walked into the cabin set with Buddy Ebsen, he bumped into the doorframe, turned, and politely said, “Excuse me,” and the producers loved it. Jethro was born in that moment of accidental comedy, a character that would make Max a household name and a prisoner of his own success. Then just a week after Donna won the part, she was hit from behind at a red light, her head striking the steering wheel and landing her in the hospital with a severe concussion.

She was dizzy and sick for days, but after about two weeks, terrified they would give Ellie May to someone else, she checked herself out and showed up for work with the room still spinning. On September 26, 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies premiered on CBS, and it was Donna’s 30th birthday, and she was playing a teenager. That is show business for you, a cruel mistress who laughs at logic and timing.

The critics hated the show, calling it corny and silly, a lowbrow embarrassment to the medium of television. The audience did not care one bit, and within weeks, it was the number one program in America, a cultural phenomenon that defied all expectations. Flatt and Scruggs’ banjo theme, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” went all the way to number one on the country charts, cementing the show’s place in American history.

In January 1964, an episode about Granny mistaking a kangaroo for a giant jack rabbit drew one of the largest audiences any half-hour sitcom has ever had, a record that still stands today. The critics, it seems, were the only ones not laughing, while millions of Americans tuned in every week to watch the Clampetts navigate the treacherous waters of Beverly Hills. What made it work was the family, a cast of characters who felt real even in the most absurd situations.

Buddy Ebsen, the calm, wise Jed, had once been cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz until the aluminum powder in his makeup nearly killed him and he had to be replaced. Irene Ryan was a vaudeville veteran with impeccable timing, a woman who could steal a scene with a single raised eyebrow. Raymond Bailey played the greedy banker, Mr.

Drysdale, and Nancy Kulp played his long-suffering secretary, Miss Jane Hathaway, a duo that provided the perfect foil to the Clampetts’ innocence.

Bea Benaderet, Jethro’s mother Pearl in the first season, was also the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones, a connection that tied two of television’s most beloved families together. Max always said Buddy was the real star, the anchor that held the whole crazy ship together. Back in 1962, when reporters noticed young Jethro was getting more fan mail than anybody, Max had a ready answer.

Buddy’s admirers, he explained, weren’t of the age group that writes letters, a dig at the older demographic that loved the show. He added that Buddy kept throwing the best lines to the rest of them and that if he ever became as big a star as Buddy, he hoped he would be as big a person. Like any real family, they squabbled, and Max once compared a TV cast to a dog and a cat stuck in a room, learning to get along because they have to.

He admitted he yelled at Irene, and she yelled right back, and that when he got cross with Donna, she would sometimes cry, a confession that reveals the raw emotion beneath the comedy.

But nobody outside the family was allowed to pick on them, and Donna, for her part, summed Max up in two words: “He’s a rascal.” Max loved to tell about the blooper reels they would watch at the Christmas party, moments of pure chaos that reminded them why they loved their jobs. One year, Buddy and Irene staged a naughty little gag in a bedroom scene, and the whole crew roared with laughter.

All except Donna, who said flatly, “That’s nasty,” a moment that perfectly captured her moral compass. That was Donna, a woman of principle in a town that often had none. Buddy also tried teaching Max to sail, and Max joked that he did not learn much about sailing but learned a lot about drowning, a self-deprecating humor that endeared him to fans.

Then there was Jethrine, Jethro’s twin sister, played by Max in a dress with his voice dubbed by Linda Kaye Henning, the creator’s daughter, a comedic tour de force that required serious commitment.

Max said that after wearing the padding, the girdle, and the makeup, he finally understood that women go through absolute misery to look good, a revelation that gave him new respect for the fairer sex. On screen, Jethro and Ellie May were the two kids of the household, and the writers had a field day with them, creating some of the most memorable moments in television history. Jethro was forever chasing a new career, brain surgeon one week, Hollywood producer the next, and most famously a double-naught spy, a running gag that never got old.

Ellie May, meanwhile, filled the mansion with critters, from raccoons and possums to a chimpanzee named Cousin Bessie, and turned the swimming pool into the cement pond. Every young fellow who came courting got wrestled to the ground before he could finish saying hello, a physical comedy that showcased Donna’s athleticism. Max was the youngest of the main cast, and he and Donna fell into the easy rhythm of real cousins, teasing, needling, and covering for each other through the long days of filming.

The joke underneath it all was that Jethro, all 6’4″ of him, was the one with no common sense, while Ellie May, the beauty queen, could outrun, outclimb, and outfight any man in Beverly Hills. That was not really acting for Donna, she had been doing it since Pride, Louisiana, where survival meant being tougher than the boys. Max, who had grown up around prize fighters, knew a tough customer when he saw one, and for all her sweetness, Donna was one of the toughest he ever met.

Donna’s fame spread far beyond Beverly Hills, and in 1966, she was cast opposite Elvis Presley in Frankie and Johnny, a film that paired two American icons. She later said the two of them spent their breaks talking about faith and spiritual books instead of flirting, a revelation that surprised no one who knew her. The King of Rock and Roll and the Queen of the Critters, swapping thoughts on the Good Book, a meeting of souls that transcended the glitz of Hollywood.

Hollywood did not know what to make of her, she did not drink, did not chase the nightlife, and did not give the gossip columns much to chew on. In 1971, she married Robert Leeds, a director on the show, but that same year, the party ended in a way that shocked the entire industry. CBS swept out nearly every rural comedy on its schedule, from Green Acres to Mayberry RFD, in what became known as the “rural purge.”

Pat Buttram, Mr. Haney on Green Acres, famously quipped that CBS canceled everything with a tree in it, a bitter joke that rang true for millions of fans. The Beverly Hillbillies was still pulling solid ratings, but it did not matter, and after 274 episodes, with Donna appearing in every single one of them, the Clampetts were evicted.

For Max and Donna, the hardest years were just beginning, a struggle that would test their character in ways the show never could.

The trouble was, America could not see them as anyone else, and Max put it bluntly when he said he was about as much in demand as cancer. He could not walk into a producer’s office and ask to play a neurosurgeon or a pilot because the moment he appeared on screen, people would say, “There’s Jethro.” Donna faced the same wall, offered walk-ons and bit parts and, as time went on, roles in slasher pictures and films she felt crossed a moral line.

She said no, every single time, preferring to walk away rather than be ashamed of what she put on the screen. Max took a different road, and if Hollywood would not hire him, he would hire himself. In 1974, he wrote, produced, and starred in Macon County Line, a gritty drive-in picture made on a shoestring that went on to earn many millions, one of the most profitable independent films of its day.

Two years later, he directed Ode to Billy Joe, based on the Bobby Gentry song, proving he was more than just a pretty face with a sixth-grade education.

Still, Jethro followed him like a hound dog, and when the Clampetts reunited in a 1981 TV movie, Max refused to take part, and another actor stepped in as Jethro. Donna and Buddy went along with Nancy Kulp, but Max stayed away, a decision he later came to regret. Eventually, Max made his peace with the character that defined him.

“If I have to be Jethro,” he decided, “I’ll be Jethro.” He confessed he suffered from what he called tunnel vision, and he aimed it at a wild dream that would consume him for decades. In 1991, he licensed the rights from CBS to build a Beverly Hillbillies casino in Nevada with a mansion out front, a giant oil derrick, a cement pond with rope swings, talking slot machines shaped like the characters, and Granny’s shotgun wedding chapel where a pretend groom would be led in by two sheriffs in handcuffs.

You have to admit, it beats bingo night at the Elks Lodge, but lawsuits and zoning fights tangled the project up for years, and it was never built. Nobody can say Max Baer Jr. ever thought small, and his ambition was as grand as the character he played.

Donna, meanwhile, turned toward the things that had always mattered most to her, finding peace in faith and service. In 1982, she enrolled at a Bible training center in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and graduated two years later with a focus on children’s ministry. She sang gospel in churches all over the country, earned a real estate license, and wrote children’s books, including one called Donna’s Critters and Kids, a title that would have made Ellie May proud.

She signed autographs and swapped stories with fans at conventions, always in her pigtails and her ruffled pink or blue, a living time capsule of the character America loved. And when Mattel put out an Ellie May Barbie doll in 2011 without asking her, the sweet country girl took the toy giant to court, and the matter was settled, proving she still had that Louisiana fight in her. Donna once explained her feelings about the role better than anyone else could, saying, “Ellie May was like a slice out of my life.”

The character was a wonderful door opener, she added, but it takes substance and integrity to carry you through that door, words that defined her entire career.

One by one, the family left the stage, a parade of losses that would eventually leave Max as the last man standing. Bea Benaderet died in 1968, the first of the core cast to go, a loss that shook the remaining family. In 1973, Irene Ryan, who had triumphed on Broadway in Pippin, fell ill during a performance and died weeks later, a sudden end to a remarkable career.

Her estate still funds the Irene Ryan acting scholarships, helping young theater students to this very day, a legacy that outlives her by decades. Not a bad legacy for the woman who bought a nervous kid a martini before his screen test, a kindness Max never forgot. Raymond Bailey died in 1980, and Buddy, of course, had landed on his feet, solving crimes as the gentle detective Barnaby Jones for eight seasons.

Nancy Kulp ran for Congress in Pennsylvania in 1984, and in one of the strangest twists in TV history, Buddy Ebsen recorded a radio ad for her opponent, a betrayal that reportedly stung for years. Miss Hathaway lost, and the sting reportedly lingered until her death in 1991, a sad footnote to a brilliant career.

Still, the survivors kept finding their way back to each other, bound by something deeper than contracts or ratings. In 1992, Max and Donna celebrated Buddy’s 84th birthday with him, a reunion that reminded them of what they had built together. And in 1993, the three of them reunited for a CBS special, a nostalgic trip down memory lane that delighted fans.

Max liked to say that some of those old episodes were so funny that if you did not laugh, you had to be a pretty strange person, a simple truth that explained the show’s enduring appeal. In July 2003, Buddy Ebsen lay in a hospital bed at the age of 95, and the night before he died, two visitors came to sit with him: his television nephew and his television daughter. Donna remembered it simply, saying, “Max and I were with Buddy the night before he died.”

Think about that for a moment, 40 years after they had first walked onto that cabin set, Jethro and Ellie May were still family, keeping vigil over the man who taught them both how to work. After that, it was just the two of them, the last links to a golden age of television.

They did not live in each other’s pockets, with Max out at Lake Tahoe and Donna back home in Louisiana, but they kept in touch. As Max put it, they were not the kind of people who would text, but they would call each other when there was something to share. Most of us have a friend like that, someone we do not speak to every week but whose number we would never think of deleting.

The last time Max saw her was in January 2013 at an autograph show in Los Angeles, and she looked exactly as she always did, he said, dressed in pink or blue with those signature pigtails. What Max did not know, what almost nobody knew, was that in the fall of 2014, Donna was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She told hardly anyone, keeping her suffering private as she had kept her life private for decades.

She was, as Max said, a very private person, and then added with his usual honesty, “nothing like me.” On New Year’s Day 2015, Donna Douglas died in Baton Rouge near her hometown at the age of 82, and the world lost one of its brightest lights.

Max learned the news like everybody else, through the impersonal channels of modern media, and then a friend delivered the words Donna had wanted him to hear. “Tell Maxie I thought I was going to get better,” she said, a message that cut through the years like a knife. Max, who likes to play the gruff old cuss, did not dress it up when he spoke of her.

“I loved her,” he said, and then he gave her the finest compliment he could think of. “She was Ellie May until the day she died.” With her gone, Max said it plainly with a sadness you could hear in his voice, “I’m the last man standing.

All the actors, producers, everybody on the show is gone.” Today, he is 88, still living at Lake Tahoe, the lone survivor of the family that once had tens of millions of Americans laughing on the same night. He has never pretended it has been easy to live in Jethro’s shadow, once saying he was born Max Baer Jr.

, the son of a great boxer, and he will die Jethro Bodine, and that he never really got the chance to be himself.

But in a gentler mood, he made his peace with it, saying that if he made people laugh, even at his own expense, then it was okay. Maybe that is the secret of the Clampetts and of Donna most of all, she never tried to outrun the girl from the hills. She simply was her, critters and pigtails and Bible and all right up to the end, a woman of unwavering integrity in a town that rewarded compromise.

And somewhere, I like to imagine, Uncle Jed is calling the family to supper, Granny is stirring the pot, and Ellie May is saving a seat for her cousin Jethro. Not too soon, Maxie, take your time, because the world is a little dimmer without the Clampetts, but their laughter echoes on. Y’all come back now, hear?