Here’s WHY Max Baer Jr. REFUSED to Be In The Beverly Hillbillies TV Reunion Movie

Max Baer, Jr., ca. mid-1960s — Everett Collection

What To Know

Max Baer Jr. refused to participate in the 1981 Beverly Hillbillies reunion movie because he wanted to distance himself from the Jethro character.
Baer’s decision to skip the reunion allowed him to pursue other ventures.

Growing up, I spent a significant amount of time watching reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies, especially during the summer months when school was out, and it was still too early to go out and play with friends. Along with the fantastic theme song, the adventures of the Clampett clan were just so much fun. Yep, without a doubt, downing a big bowl of cereal and watching the comedic hijinks of Jed, Granny, Elly May, and, of course, Jethro Bodine was a great way to start the day.

Fast-forward a handful of years to 1981, when CBS decided it was time to bring the family back together for a reunion movie called Return of the Beverly Hillbillies, which brings us to the topic of this article. You see, Max Baer Jr. was the only surviving member of the original cast who refused to make that reunion movie.

So, why would he refuse to play Jethro one last time? Probably because, in real life, Max was way more interesting than the character he played on the show. The son of a heavyweight boxing champion, he was a college graduate with a degree in Business Administration and a minor in Philosophy. So, here was this smart, well-spoken guy who, after The Beverly Hillbillies became a ratings hit, nobody saw as that.

BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, Donna Douglas, Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Max Baer, Jr., 1962-1971

Everett Collection

After the show ended, Max found himself staring headlong into what he thought was going to be a pretty darn tough decade. If you saw a headline about Max way back then, it probably had something to do with golfing, which he was very, very good at. And while Buddy Ebsen went on to have a huge second act with Barnaby Jones, Max found himself stuck. Hollywood had typecast him. They had decided that he was a “simpleton” and refused to let him play doctors, lawyers, or tough guys.

Getting back to 1981 and that reunion movie: by the time that conversation started up, the character of Jethro felt less like a fun role and more like a trap that he had finally escaped.

The production of that reunion movie was already facing a really tough battle because Irene Ryan, who played Granny, had passed away in 1973. If we’re going to be truthful, folks, I think it’s fair to say that she was the energy and the spark of that show. Doing it without her was already a very risky move. The writers tried to fill the gap by bringing in Imogene Coca to play Granny’s Ma, but I’m sorry, it just wasn’t the same.

Max had read the script, and he wasn’t impressed. More importantly, he knew that playing Jethro again would undo all the work he had done to separate himself from that character. It really was a pretty darn easy decision for him to say no. He was hellbent on making sure that no one ever did that to him again.

As a result, actor Ray Young was hired to take Max’s place. The only role I remembered Ray in before this movie was playing Bigfoot on the Saturday-morning Sid and Marty Krofft show Bigfoot and Wildboy. Going from a fur suit on Saturday mornings to filling the shoes of a TV legend is a pretty strange leap.

Without a doubt, Max was truly missed. Writing for Cinema Retro, film critic Lee Pfeiffer, talking about faux Jethro’s performance, said this, “Although he does his best, we are all too aware that he was not part of the original cast.”

When the movie aired, the reception from both critics and the television audience was mixed at best. The fact of the matter is that without the real Granny and without the real Jethro, the family dynamic just kind of fell apart. It ended up being a forgettable night of television that mostly just made people want to go back and watch the original episodes.

For Max, skipping the reunion movie turned out to be a very smart move. He had realized early on that if he couldn’t find work as an actor, he would have to make his own way. So, you know what? During the early seventies, he wrote his own movie and started his own production company. He said, “If no one else will hire me, well then, darn it, I’ll hire myself.”

MACON COUNTY LINE, Max Baer Jr., Jesse Vint, Cheryl Waters, 1974

Everett Collection

In 1974, moviegoers were treated to a little flick called Macon County Line. Max had made it on a tiny budget, and it became a massive hit that year, earning millions of dollars. While the rest of the Beverly Hillbillies cast were trying to recapture the past, Max, without any sort of anger, simply refused to play their game.

Writing for the website, Movies & Drinks, Paul Mavis said, “Made on a ridiculously small budget … Macon County Line is a cut above most of the exploitation flicks that crawled into local drive-ins at the time.”

The best part of this story is that Max is still with us. Born in 1937, he is now 88 years old. With the passing of Donna Douglas in 2015, he is the last surviving member of that original cast. He has outlived the critics, the typecasting, and the industry that tried, but ultimately failed, to box him in. Well played, Mr. Baer, well played.