What The Only Surviving Star From The Beverly Hillbillies Looks Like Now

"The Beverly Hillbillies" has an enduring place in American TV history. Debuting in 1962, the CBS sitcom was a hit starting from Season 1 and remained so until its end in 1971. Now decades in the past, most of its ensemble cast members have died. The only exception is Max Baer Jr. (above on the left), who played well-meaning-but-dimwitted Jethro Bodine. Baer Jr., the son of boxing champion Max Baer, was 24 and the youngest among the main cast, so it is natural that he has outlived his former costars.

Born in December 1937, Baer Jr. turned 88 in 2025 and lives largely out of the spotlight. But in April 2016, he came out to celebrate pop culture and horror at the Chiller Theater Expo. And he made quite an appearance. Stepping out in a black-and-white Polo Ralph Lauren sports jacket halfway unzipped with a black low-cut undershirt, Baer Jr. showed that he had aged with style. He also rocked a gold medallion necklace and gradient shades, complete with a '70s-style 'stache that amplified his swagger.

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A year before the expo, in January 2015, Elly May Clampett actor Donna Douglas had died of pancreatic cancer at age 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 speak 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 Rumor Fix Magazine. And thus, Baer Jr. became the only surviving member of "The Beverly Hillbillies" main cast.

Playing Jethro Bodine on "The Beverly Hillbillies" gave Max Baer Jr. a place in Hollywood, but it became a double-edged sword. While he was grateful for the role, he also struggled to break out of the typecast. "I couldn't go into a producer's office and say I wanted to play the part of a neurosurgeon or pilot," he told Fore Magazine in 2017. "As soon as I came on screen, people would say, there's Jethro."

Every time folks called him Jethro, he flinched. "It's like somebody calling you a son of a b***h," he once said (via FilmInk). "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 issues seemingly had deeper roots. "I was born Max Baer Jr., the son of a great boxer, and I'll 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 flat-out refused to reprise his role in the 1981 movie "Return of the Beverly Hillbillies," forcing CBS to cast Ray Young as Jethro.

However, the sitcom star didn't entirely disappear after the show ended. When Hollywood wouldn't cast him because of the typecast, 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 relation to investment at the time. He continued to act and produce for a few more years and eventually turned his attention to other ventures.