Donna Douglas - Elly May

Dressed in blue jeans with the trademark clothesline rope belt and a ruffled, pink blouse, Donna Douglas still looked a lot like her country bumpkin Elly May character from the television series “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Douglas signed autographs and posed for pictures for three hours during her personal appearance at the 23^rd Tom Mix Festival in DuBois, PA, on Sept. 13. When asked she obliged fans with a shrill Elly May whistle. Douglas was also the grand marshal for the Tom Mix parade on Sept. 14. donna as grand marshall in parade on corvette

donna as grand marshall in parade on corvette

Douglas at 63 is still beautiful and says she has not had any face lifts or plastic surgery done.

She stays busy making personal appearances and has a book titled Donna ’s Critters & Kids. (Click on link to find out more about her book.)

“I say it’s a Bible story with a critter twist. I’ve combined it with a coloring book for ages two to seven. Then I’ve gone into the recording studio and recorded the tape. They can listen to the tape and learn to read and get the Word of God in them.”

As far as my singing, I’ve done gospel singing. I have a gospel album and country album.” Douglas sells her music tapes and CDs at her personal appearances.

Douglas says she may do another album and has several products coming out that are very good for arthritis and tendonitis. She is also working with a professor on another book project.

“I speak for a lot of church groups, youth groups, schools, colleges and do personal appearances. I’ve done conventions and trade shows. A lot of different little hats.”

Born Dorothy Smith, Douglas still considers Baton Rouge, LA., her home but resides in California.

“I still live in Huntington Beach, California, but I try to get back home more to Louisiana a lot. All my family is down in Louisiana.”

Douglas says she was in a couple beauty contests before she left home in Baton Rouge and moved to California where she became an actress starring in movies as “Frankie and Johnny” with Elvis Presley in 1966. She chooses not to comment about Elvis.

Douglas starred as Elly May on the “The Beverly Hillbillies” from 1962-71. The show was about a hillbilly who struck it rich in oil and moved his family to Beverly Hills. When asked about her Elly May character, Douglas has no regrets. donna as elly may clampett

“I loved doing Elly May. She was a slice out of my own life. And of course the “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. So the right attitude was important. We set a good examples. The ‘Hillbillies set high standards.”

“People come up to me on planes and different places and say, ‘We wish we had shows like that. We didn’t have to worry about what our kids were watching. We knew they were watching the Beverly Hillbillies.’ Today you can’t go by the titles of the shows to know what the content of the show may be.”

“We worked as a family. We had a lot of respect for Buddy (Ebsen, Uncle Jed Clampett) and Irene (Ryan, Granny) and Paul Henning (Beverly Hillbillies creator-producer).”

“Back then it was more or less we couldn’t change a line in our script. They had inside script ‘not a line could be changed without permission of creator-producer Paul Henning.’ We weren’t allowed to change lines. Today actors change everything and won’t do parts. It’s very different today. Back then the producers were in charge. Today actors are more in charge.”

After the “The Beverly Hillbillies” were canceled, Douglas got her real estate license so she would have something to fall back on and not have worry about compromising her work ethics. She didn’t do real estate long as she continued to stay busy in show biz and found other projects. Douglas doesn’t feel that her Elly May role stereotyped her acting career.

“I would think that other people could see if you had other talents. I grew and expanded from the Elly May role. I was doing real estate and personal appearances and kept my foot in the door.”

“I was offered to do a night time soap after “The Beverly Hillbillies.” There was so much I didn’t want to do because of family values. It was a big hit in a couple weeks, but it didn’t matter to me because I wanted to do a certain caliber of work and didn’t want to do garbage.”

Douglas says they offered to change her character but she didn’t take them up on the offer. She wouldn’t say which nighttime soap opera only that it was a huge success in a few weeks. clampett family

Douglas talks fondly of her surviving Hillbillies cast members Ebsen and Max Baer Jr., who played the dimwitted Jethro. She says Max Baer Jr. is working on a casino project in Nevada (click link for more on Baer’s proposed $130 million “The Beverly Hillbillies” Mansion & Casino in Reno, NV., including the controversial 240-foot tall oil derrick with a 70-foot high flame and complete Baer bio.) and Ebsen has a new book.

“Buddy is quite a painter. He’s done quite a bit of work.” (Click on link to see to see Ebsen’s art work and new book “Kelly’s Quest” on his official homepage.)

Douglas likes to do china painting but says she doesn’t get much time to do it.

She also looks forward to quiet time to relax and still likes pets like her Elly May character did.

“I really love pets. They’re like children. They know if you really love them or not. You can’t fool them.”

Asked what she would like to accomplish, Douglas says, “ Whatever God would want me to do. I want to add not take away. Love each other and help others.”

When asked how she would like to be remembered she says, “That I cared about people.”