The Beverly Hillbillies - Max Baer Jr. Interview

hello hello is this max baer yes it is hello max this is dust and wellness from kms you radio how are you today how are you were you lad I am in Minnesota oh is this a good time to ask you a few questions sure excellent well first of all I get I guess I'll kind of get a sense of you know how you started in acting or what made you want to get into it oh I was just an accident I was at lunch at Warner Brothers one day somebody took me over there friend of mine they saw me on a lot and James Garner had just left maverick and they were looking for somebody to put in maverick and I resembled Jimmy a little bit because it's somebody from ABC saw me and thought I was him at a distance and so they asked me if I wanted act and I said I don't know what does it pay and they said you know they signed they would sign me to it a regular what do you call like the cameraman the name that they called it just a general contract player and it was 250 a week this was in 1960 and so I said occasionally I'll try and I went ahead and I did a reading for and then I know screen cast I just did a reading for him and they saw me and I did Surfside six 77 Sunset Strip Hawaii Bravo Cheyenne Maverick Roaring Twenties I did all those shows they had over there on ABC at the time and that's where I got my my my bone so to speak because that's where I learned a little bit about the camera and where to go and so forth him hi all small parts but it was a good education and I when I left there after a year I was only on a contract to here I did a couple of other shows and then I tested for the Beverly Hillbillies got that and I was on that for nine years yeah definitely interesting how you just kind of fell into it and I know of course your father a boxing great former champion was that ever something you considered maybe going on the boxing route no my dad said boxing was a religious sport it was far better to give and receive and I didn't have any religious feelings at the time so I didn't weigh well yeah obviously things that worked out well for you in your field and can you tell us a little bit about what it was like you know as Jethro on Beverly Hillbillies the you know the filming or your memories of being on set well since I had been at Warner Brothers for a year and I had been working constantly because they took their contract players and use them a lot they just they use them as everything because it were figures they were paying them so they'd put them in everything and anything you took the part do they didn't matter what it was so they used you because if they had to pay somebody else a freelance player they had to pay him like I think was $400 a day so they had you for 250 for a week and so they used in everything and so when I did the Hillbillies it was like it was easy it was like you know it was like pumping gas he just went to work and did your job it wasn't that difficult for me I guess I don't know I I've always been kind of a introvert but it was very easy for me to turn the other way I guess it was like being a one-eyed Jack you know you have one eye on one side when I on the other side you have two different personalities I could just become the other one very easily it was not that difficult for me so then betraying Jethro for you know 270 plus episodes a bit out did that ever get hard for you or was it just kind of a part of your acting like you mentioned if you'd got easier I you know you could almost phone it in the only tough thing I did one time is I made a mistake I never used an accent and nobody knew what was wrong with the scene but it didn't sound right that's how I talk to my own voice and and they said I said I would say the wrong things and they said no I said well was it one of the person said he'd have any accent and I went oh okay for sorry I forgot it you know that was basically about it but it wasn't difficult I'm sure there there were there are parts that people play they're very difficult like people plays you know the Elephant Man for example jonard I think it was John Hurt or William Hurt knows John Hurt but anyway it was a very difficult part to play you know I was thinking you know but but that part wasn't wasn't hard at all at least not for me maybe playing the fool was not a problem with jazz vehicle maybe I was but no it wasn't hard well yeah definitely a character that a lot of people loved and um you know as you mentioned nine seasons is it possible for you to pick up maybe a favorite episode or performance you're most proud of oh gosh no there really isn't it's just you know when you play a character it's uh it's so repetitious it's a good drink of water here because uh I stay up late and sleep late and I talk like I got a mouthful of marbles anyway I am I really don't have any favorite because you playing the same character over and over and it's pretty hard to pick out who you really like and who you don't you know I mean which one which particular episode out of 274 I and I enjoyed it if I was having a good if it if I had a if I had some good scenes to do in the doing it was fun if I was doing them with girls it was fun because I was a young guy then and so that was fine but um I really don't have one well I have to say for me personally one thing that I really enjoyed and I'm it's too bad that more shows don't do these nowadays but you guys recorded an actual soundtrack album what are your memories of doing that terrible because I'm not a singer um nor a dancer and they just had us do it because at the time it was was a popular show and was another means of the generating revenues and Silvie just had us do it Irene could sing um buddy could could sing I think I'm not I knew it was a great tap dancer and uh and Donna I guess could sing a little bit but I was I was no singer at all I think there is a kind of a certain charm to some of that old stuff like that though yeah I I guess there is but um you know like I guess there's a collectible or something but good gosh and you know I was terrible I mean I couldn't Pat my head and wrote broke my hand on my stomach at all I mean I was not it was hard for me to clapping clap on time I mean it was just um I it was about what I was qualified to do sure well and of course it's sad to hear Donna Douglas she played Ella Mae passed away recently were you close with the cast after the show ended over the years um well Irene died right after the show was over shows over in 71 and I think she died right right then 71 or 72 she went on to Broadway and did Pippin with John Rubinstein and Ben Vereen and then she got sick on stage and came back and she got pneumonia or something went to hospital or had a stroke or something and then passed away but Irene and I were very close on the road we were we would go out at most every weekend when we were on The Beverly Hillbillies and do personal appearances and I really wouldn't sing a song you know but we would sing his group and they would turn Donna's mic and my mic down and Irene would basically carry it we were we were just basically filler or background sounds pretty much and then I was a straight man for Irene her granny jokes and so Irene and I were pretty close because of that and but it was more of a surrogate father to me because my dad it does just died 19 t9 this is 1962 and so he kind of took over he was same age as my dad born about the same time and he knew my dad pretty well so it was it was pretty easy for me and her buddy I'd become close I would go down there he tried to teach me to sail on his 36 little a ports down in Balboa Island where he had a house and as a sailor I was a very good anchor because I hard for me shake it first I may never add me on the boat he says now when when the boat comes about he says you just pull in on the winch and I said okay see now make sure you pull in quick because if you don't the sail will fill up with air and it'll be too hard to pull in and so the first time he we were out he said coming about stood up but bang the boom hit me and knocked me right in the ocean and he was laughing he said he said well I guess you can forget about being a sailor too but he'll I used to go out and have dinner like mom once a week we'd go out to someplace he'd take me to a 2mu so Frank son sons on Hollywood Boulevard or the cooks Pacific dining car he had some little places he would take me to and sometimes at lunch he had a little guy named George George would come over and cook for him in his dressing room and he'd invited me up to his dressing room and have lunch with that's it we didn't have too much to do in the afternoon because he it was either a 1 or 2 martini lunch because if he didn't if he had to remember some lines you he'd have a one martini lunch if it was or if he had to remember lines it was one if it didn't have a lot of lines in the afternoon he may have to that's right and that was pretty much it but we were pretty close Dyer was pretty independent of everybody she she kind of went our own way except we were together on the road when we did our personal appearances but Donna was always sweet she was always sweet I had the one thing I can remember about her and I've told other people the same thing in all the years that I knew her I never heard her swear ever she'd go golly gee darn dang she whistled she son of a gun and she just never used four-letter words at all never did and the last time I actually saw her was about a year ago two years ago today or right in this time we were in Los Angeles for the only autograph signing I've ever prevented she'd done some before but they called tried to put the two of us together for once and I said okay and I had to go there for something else anyway because I live at Lake Tahoe but I drove down to Los Angeles and um we went to on century Boulevard at some hotel I can't remember and we were there for two days and we did very well and Donna seemed fine but I'd see her periodically I started buddies test buddies a funeral I saw her when we went to the hospital for buddy to see him one before he'd passed away and then I saw her at Rosalie I saw her Oh then they had a kind of a tribute to Buddy at the Screen Actors Guild and I went through I went for that down in Burbank her down and yeah I think was you know is in Sempron Valley in North Hollywood where the Screen Actors Guild theater is out there so yeah it's it sounds like you guys were a pretty close-knit and you know obviously 50 years later people still love the show what do you think it is exactly about the show that's made it last so long well you know opinions are like rear ends we all have one eye if I knew I'd be doing making television shows right now producing them anyway because nobody knows what makes it hit if anybody did they'd never have any failures because they could take and figure out what it was and put it into some computer and spit it out but they still do the same thing that they used to do which is do a pilot which is a sample show and see play it for different audiences and see what the reactions are and then the network's figure out or will not now more than the network's it used to be just ABC NBC CBS but now they've got all kinds of different networks and they see if it fits into their niche what they're what they feel that they're missing for that part of programming on their network and I have no idea what ruler that they use never have it never have known I guess Steven Spielberg is probably God's good an idea and George Lucas got a good as as good an ideas anybody they just said well I I think if I like it probably most of the people like it not everybody but also because they figure that they look at them pretty much like they're average people and they've just got their finger on the pulse of America but I really don't know why it was was successful I wish I did yeah well a lot no doubt it is successful and people still talking about it and I know you kind of got into more the business side of things afterwards but is there anything else you're working on or anything coming up no no no um I'm Donna was I think 82 I'm 77 I'll be 78 this year but I just turned in December I said about a fact I never actually knew how old Donna was I knew she was about but never actually she would never really respond to that but that's okay uh no I you know what do you do it at my age you know not a heck of a lot plus it was so hard for me to lose the Jethro character that's why I really couldn't get any jobs after the series is over not really and so I wrote with Richard Compton and wrote Macon County line what made raise some money from some my golfing friends and it made them made that movie up in Northern California near my home Sacramento and I don't know why that was a success either and it was the largest grossing movie per dollar invested at that time have remained and it did about mmm we made it for 110,000 made 25 million so it was gross 25 million so it was pretty successful then we made ode to Billy Joe from the Bobbie Gentry song because my partner knew Bobbie Gentry when she was a kid playing her guitar as westwood well I think she was going to UCLA and she was on you know on the corner like the kids were in those days and she was just playing her guitar people were giving her money she was a beautiful girl my partner took her to coffee and and she wound up doing the music the song at the end of Macon County line another time another place and then she said what would you like to do ode to Billy Joel I tried to write it I couldn't write it so we got Hermann Rauscher who wrote summer of 42 de to write it and then Warner Brothers just decided that they would give us a distribution deal and then we went down the Tupelo Mississippi and heard Archie visit Tallahatchie bridge in Greenwood Mississippi and shot the movie and I directed it with Robby Benson and Gladys O'Connor and that was a hit so not about a lot of real estate and then in 1991 I made a deal to a licensed sub licensed the rights to the Beverly Hillbillies for certain things like hotels casinos restaurants etc and we've we made a deal with them international gaming technology igt and they've been doing slots very little slots now for about 10 years and we get a royalty on it which we pay some to CBS and then I have also online games because of the same individual that was with CBS I mean was with igt and is now well with arrest crap but he also has an online gaming company and we became very friendly and so he wanted to do those games online and so we're doing online games to excellent well again max it's a great to hear that you're doing well and it's been an honor talking with you today well look at is it my age the thing you think about first I guess is your health because it's the only thing that when they cancel that and they don't pay there's no way to pick up the show that's it and I was sorry sorry Liz Donna because Donna and I would talk periodically between where she was when she was on the road doing different things for she would do Christian shows and singing churches and new personal appearances like that if something came up that she was called upon that might have pertained to me she would try to turn me on to it it never really happened that I did anything that way but a few times they did call me about Donna and I steered Donna into the job we would do it for each other you know same way whether that autograph-signing things they called me and then I they wanted to reach Donna so I gave him a number that they could reach her at they put us together but she was a sweetheart she was always nice she was always fun she was very different because myself I was neither being recorded or on the air I talked like a truck driver talk about a guy in the military surrounded by other guys with no women around use a lot of four-letter words probably and it's not love it might be for love but it isn't you don't say love is like being the four-letter work say everything else but but hey look at such as life I've had a very very fortunate life pretty full and as a matter of fact I can still get in the same Levi's I wore when I was doing series beautiful that is what that is probably as much of them I'm most proud of that because I kept one pair of Levi's and once a month I try them on as long as I can get into them that's okay and I workout 3 days a week pretty hard wonderful thanks again max it's been great having Yann you're you're very welcome thank you for thanking me and you know keep good thoughts for Donna cuz she was a terrific person absolutely thanks so much all right you have a great day are you - bye bye

Channel: thefivecount

Views: 54,159

Rating: 4.8965516 out of 5

Keywords: The Beverly Hillbillies (Award-Winning Work) Max Baer, Jr. (Film Actor) TV Land (TV Network) Donna Douglas (Film Actor)

Id: Eir7OFo4YYE

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2015