This is Jethro Bodine from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Max Baer Jr.

Max Baer Jr.: The Man Behind Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies

Max Baer Jr., best remembered as Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies, is now 84 years old. The comedy program followed the saga of the Clampett family, with Jed Clampett, played by Buddy Ebsen, gaining fortune at an alarming rate. Jed became a millionaire instantly and decided to relocate to Beverly Hills, California. Despite their newfound wealth, the family maintained their backwoods lifestyle.

Jethro Bodine, the son of Jed’s cousin, Pearl, was played by Max Baer Jr., a naive and borderline dimwitted man who demonstrated his arithmetic skills with his multiplication classic, “five gozinta five one times, five gozinta ten two times.” The show was an instant hit when it first broadcast in 1962. According to IMDb, it soared to the top spot faster than any other show in television history within the first three weeks of its launch. The show lasted 11 years, with nine seasons and 274 episodes, before being discontinued in 1971. In 1964, The Beverly Hillbillies was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Show Comedy and four Emmy nominations.

Max Baer Jr. was born in Oakland, California, on December 4, 1937. He is the son of boxing champion Max Baer and Mary Ellen Sullivan. Baer Jr. grew up in Sacramento before moving to Santa Clara to study. He graduated from Santa Clara University with a Bachelor of Business Management in 1959. A year later, he found himself in a Los Angeles parking lot, where an executive recognized him as James Garner.

Despite knowing nothing about acting, Baer Jr. quickly signed his first one-year contract. He had modest parts and guest appearances on television shows including 77 Sunset Strip, Maverick, and Hawaiian Eye. Even though his career wasn’t taking off, he opted to stay. Soon, he found himself with the best job he’d ever had: a sitcom about a country bumpkin family who become wealthy through oil. After an open audition, he landed the role of Jethro Bodine in The Beverly Hillbillies, receiving $1000 for the pilot and $500 for the following shows.

Baer Jr.’s portrayal of Jethro made him an American comic star. “It’s extremely difficult to be subjective or objective about yourself when you play a part like Jethro,” Baer Jr. told Medium. “You simply do the best you can with the material you’re given, and then you attempt to contribute to it [with your performance] as much as possible. Yet, in the end, the audience has the final word. We liked what you did or we didn’t like what you did. And you don’t have any other method of assessing it.”

Max Baer Jr. felt he was doing well and, more importantly, making people laugh. “You must perform well. And, in my situation, it’s fine if I’ve made people laugh, even if it’s at my expense. I don’t care,” remarked Baer Jr. “They can laugh with or at me. It makes no difference as long as they laugh. So if I can make them laugh, I’ll consider my performance a success. I don’t know what level of success it achieved. Yet I can say it accomplished its purpose.”

In 1993, a feature-length remake of the iconic TV show starring Dolly Parton debuted, but it did not enjoy the same level of success. Celebrated actress Donna Douglas, who portrayed mountain beauty Elly May Clampett, applauded Max Baer Jr. for his outstanding performance as Jethro. “Max Baer did well as Jethro because he didn’t come across as so stupid that you didn’t like him,” she remarked in the book Dashing, Daring, and Debonair: TV’s Greatest Male Legends from the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. “He was and still is difficult to deal with. Yet we were all like a family. Max could complain about any of us (for whatever cause), but he must not allow anyone else to say anything about us. Max would never let that person take it. He’d defend us as though we were a real family.” Donna Douglas died in 2015 at 82, leaving Baer Jr. as the show’s only surviving cast member.

Baer Jr., in addition to being a recognized star on The Beverly Hillbillies, had a keen interest in sports, much like his father. Max Baer Sr. was a professional boxer, but Baer Jr. did not follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, he played professional golf, competing in various California competitions. Baer Jr. lettered in golf, football, baseball, and basketball while attending Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento, California. He also won the Sacramento Junior Open Golf Championship and eventually finished second in the men’s tournament. In 1968, he paired up with professional golfer Charlie Sifford to win the pro-am division of the Andy Williams Golf Championship in San Diego.

After the cancellation of The Beverly Hillbillies, Baer Jr. found himself with few options. One issue was that producers only saw him as Jethro. He appeared as a guest on various shows, including Love, American Style, Fantasy Island, and Murder, She Wrote. Instead of working on many small films and TV series, he decided to strike out on his own, producing and directing films such as Ode to Billie Joe and Macon County Line (1974). According to IMDb, Macon County Line cost $225,000 to make and was the most profitable indie film of 1974, with $18.8 million in North America and more than $30 million globally. It also inspired the sequel Return to Macon County (1975).

In 1991, Baer Jr. chose to buy the Beverly Hillbillies moniker from CBS, intending to use the show’s premise and characters in casinos, amusement parks, restaurants, and cosmetics. The themed casino and amusement park were to be erected on 24 acres of his land in Carson Valley, Nevada. Despite his ambitions, Baer Jr. has faced various disputes related to his projects, and nothing substantial has come of his desire to create a blockbuster franchise based on the successful TV series. Baer was said to have sued CBS in 2014, alleging the network had struck a secret contract with Jethro’s Barbecue in Des Moines, which he claimed hampered his ability to earn money from his role on the popular television show.

Max Baer Jr. was married once to Joanne Kathleen Hill in 1966, but they divorced in 1971. After a string of relationships, he dated Chere Rhodes, a 30-year-old model from California, until her tragic death in January 2008. Rhodes was shot in the chest, and her death was ruled a suicide after an investigation.

Max Baer Jr. had to fight his way into the spotlight in Hollywood. He once remarked about his future in 1963, a quote that accurately depicted what he went through in the following years: “We Baers never turned out the way we had intended. My grandfather always wanted to be a prize boxer but worked as a butcher. He did win a butchering championship once. Dad had planned to become an actress, and, as everyone knows, he became a boxer. I intended to be a lawyer, and now I’m an actor. My career has benefited greatly from the show.

The exposure will also help me get work in the future. And I aspire to prove someday that I can play something other than a hillbilly.”

Whatever happened before or after the show, we will remember Max Baer Jr. as a fantastic actor who made us laugh in almost every episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. He’ll always have a special place in our hearts. Please share this tale with your friends and family!