“The Beverly Hillbillies” has an enduring place in American television history. The CBS sitcom debuted in 1962 and was a hit from Season 1 and remained so until its end in 1971. Now decades in the past, most of its ensemble cast members are dead. The only exception is Max Baer Jr. (above left), who played the well-intentioned but dim-witted Jethro Bodine. Baer Jr., the son of boxing champion Max Baer, was 24 and the youngest among the main cast, so it’s natural that he has outlived his former co-stars.
Born in December 1937, Baer Jr. 88 years old in 2025 and lives largely out of the limelight. But in April 2016, he came out to celebrate pop culture and horror at the Chiller Theater Expo. And he made a big performance. When Baer Jr. stepping out in a black and white Polo Ralph Lauren sport jacket half-buttoned up with a black, low-cut undershirt, Baer Jr. showed he’s aged in style. He also rocked a gold locket necklace and gradient shades, complete with a ’70s-style ‘stache that enhanced his swagger.
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A year before the show, in January 2015, Elly May Clampett actress Donna Douglas had died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 82. Born in September 1932, she was five years older than Baer Jr. and close to the former 70s sitcom star. Baer Jr. didn’t have a chance to talk to Douglas before she died, but she left him a message through a friend. “Tell Maxie I thought I was going to get better,” she said, according to the report Rumor Fix Magazine. And thus Baer Jr. became the only surviving member of “The Beverly Hillbillies” main cast.
Max Baer Jr. has a complicated relationship with his Beverly Hillbillies character
Playing Jethro Bodine on “The Beverly Hillbillies” gave Max Baer Jr. a place in Hollywood, but it turned out to be a double-edged sword. While he was grateful for the role, he also struggled to break out of the typecast. “I couldn’t walk into a producer’s office and say I want to play a neurosurgeon or a pilot,” he shared. For the Magazine in 2017. “As soon as I got on screen, people would say there’s Jethro.”
Whenever people called him Jethro, he flinched. “It’s like someone calling you a son of ab***h,” he once said (via Film Inc). “If he’s your friend, it’s okay. If he’s your enemy, it’s not.” While being typecast is a real phenomenon many TV stars face, Baer Jr.’s problems apparently had deeper roots. “I was born Max Baer Jr., the son of a great boxer, and I will die Jethro Bodine. Period. I never really got the chance to be me,” he said in the Fore Magazine interview. Baer Jr.’s feelings were so strong that he completely refused to reprise his role in the 1981 film “Return of the Beverly Hillbillies,” forcing CBS to cast Ray Young as Jethro.
However The sitcom star didn’t completely disappear after the show ended. When Hollywood wouldn’t cast him because of the typecasting, he created a role for himself. In 1974, he produced and starred in “Macon County Line,” which became its distributor’s highest-grossing film in terms of investment at the time. He continued to perform and produce for a few more years, eventually turning his attention to other ventures.
