Max Baer Jr.: 11 Facts About Jethro Bodine from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’

Television audiences loved each cast member of The Beverly Hillbillies, whether it be Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett, Irene Ryan as Granny, Donna Douglas as Elly May Clampett or Max Baer Jr. as cousin (though he always referred to Jed as “uncle”) Jethro Bodine. Sadly, of them all, the only one still with us is Baer.

Back in 1963, a year after the show had made its debut, Max Baer Jr. spoke to the media reflectively and with positive feelings regarding the future: “We Baers never wound up exactly the way we hoped we would. My grandfather always wanted to be a prize fighter, but he became a butcher. He did win a slaughtering championship once. Dad had hoped to become an actor and, as everyone knows, he became a boxer. I wanted to be a lawyer and here I am acting. The show has done a lot for my career. The exposure will help insure work for me in the future, too. And someday I hope to prove I can play something besides a hillbilly.”

Although he didn’t have too much of an opportunity to demonstrate the latter, Max Baer Jr. did prove himself to be a Hollywood survivor, shifting gears to a behind-the-scenes role and profiting from it greatly.

He was born on December 4, 1937 in Oakland, California, the son of boxing heavyweight champion Max Baer (who held the title from 1934 to 1935) and one of three children born to Max Sr. and Mary Ellen Sullivan. At Sacramento, California’s Christian Brothers High School, he earned letters in four sports and would go on to serve as a medical technician in the United States Air Force at Alabama’s Gunter Air Force Base. Eventually Baer would earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration form Santa Clara University, where he minored in philosophy — a combination that was about as far removed from Jethro as one could imagine.

What follows is a closer look at the life and career of Max Baer, Jr.

1

Born MaximillianAdalbert Baer Jr., he’s the son of boxing champion Max Baer, and although at one time he attempted to follow in his father’s “glove-steps,” it didn’t work out too well and he stepped away from the ring.

2

While he was in high school, Max Baer Jr. was the winner of the junior title of the Sacramento Open golf tournament, twice, but golf was something else that he decided he didn’t want to stick with despite his obvious talent (in fact, in 1968 he won the pro-am tournament at the Andy Williams – San Diego Open in 1968).

3

He began acting when a contract with Warner Bros in 1960 resulted in his appearing in a number of television series, among them Hawaiian Eye, Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip and Maverick.

4

Being cast as Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies quite literally changed his life. “Six months ago,” reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1963, “Max Baer Jr. was broke and literally going hungry. He had a quart of milk to sustain him for four days and only one threadbare suit of clothes and was down to his last two weeks of unemployment insurance.

“I was two months behind in my rent,” the actor admitted, “and my weight had dropped from 210 to 188 pounds.'”

5

He really didn’t have any explanation to offer regarding why The Beverly Hillbillies had so quickly become a successful series. “The critics have been against it,” he pointed out. “Nobody likes it but the people. Maybe if the show had come out in 1958, it would have been a bomb.” He gave all credit for the success to series creator Paul Henning (who had also dreamed up Petticoat Junction and would become executive producer of Green Acres).

6

In trying to figure out how he wanted to portray Jethro Bodine on the show, he found inspiration from comedians Jonathan Winters and Andy Griffith, the latter of whom, of course, was starring in The Andy Griffith Show at the time. Said Baer, “I bought albums they recorded and listening to them by the hour. The accent I use isn’t authentic by any means. It’s just country Southern; it isn’t supposed to represent any particular section of the country.”

7

Despite the success that he and his co-stars of The Beverly Hillbillies enjoyed throughout the 1960s, when the show came to an end in 1971, acting work was virtually impossible to find. “It’s a Catch-22,” he admitted on The Jerry Springer Show. “When you’re on a very successful show, you kind of get pigeonholed and I got pigeonholed as Jethro. After the show, people just wanted to give me Jethro or hillbilly parts, and I didn’t want to do that.”

8

Recognizing his potential behind the camera, Baer shifted into writing, producing and directing. His first effort was 1974’s Macon County Line, in which he played a sheriff seeking vengeance against a pair of drifters who murdered his wife — pretty far removed from when he played Jethro. Produced at a budget of under $200,000, it grossed about $30 million, a tremendous financial success.

9

In 1976, Max Baer Jr. was one of the first filmmakers to realize that there was film potential in popular songs, so he served as director and producer of Ode to Billy Joe, based on the Bobbie Gentry song “Ode to Billie Joe” and starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor. Another big hit, it was produced for $1.1 million and grossed $27 million.

“In the song,” Baer said, “nobody knew why the boy jumped off the bridge, so we used the song title as our star, because we couldn’t afford to take and pay the major stars that kind of money. and so ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ was the star of the show.”

10

In the 1980s, Baer came up with the idea of licensing elements of The Beverly Hillbillies and the character of Jethro for use in restaurants and casinos, believing that their success would be guaranteed due to the wave of nostalgia the show, and many series of the era, was enjoying at the time, but nothing really came out of it.

11

In his personal life, Max Baer Jr. was married to Joanne Kathleen Hill from 1966 to 1971. In 2008, he had been living with Penthouse model Chere Rhodes, who committed suicide in the Lake Tahoe, Nevada home that they shared. In December he’ll be turning 87-years-old.

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