Jethro Agonistes: The Further Adventures of Max Baer, Jr.

In spite of the fact that I have done posts of Max Baer, Sr., as well as The Beverly Hillbillies,Paul Henning, Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, and Nancy Kulp I’m pretty certain I’d never have done a dedicated post on the gent who played Jethro, Max Baer, Jr. (b. 1937). And yes, it’s because I was pretty certain he’d only ever done one, pretty unimpressive thing. But I learned otherwise recently, so we give him his due today.

It remains the case that as an actor Baer almost only ever did one thing. He’s only got a hand full of guest starring rolls on television before and after playing Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies. Before that show he had appeared on Maverick, Cheyenne, Bronco, Surfside 7, Hawaiian Eye, and 77 Sunset Strip. After the show wrapped, he was on Love American Style, Fantasy Island, Murder She Wrote, and a 1971 TV movie called The Birdmen. In between he had been in the western A Time for Killing (1967) with Glenn Ford and George Hamilton. And he starred in a pilot for a series called The Asphalt Cowboy, which hadn’t been picked up. Otherwise, the meat of Baer’s career had consisted of his role as Jethro, in which his big beefy physiognomy (inherited from his boxer dad) had been enlisted to portray the dimwitted, Li’l Abner-like nephew of nouveau riche bumpkin oil man Jed Klampett (Ebsen.) In some episodes, Bea Benaderet had played his mother Pearl. In some other episodes, Baer had played his sister Jethrine in drag.

We ought to have realized that Baer was neither an actual hillbilly nor stupid, but somehow we didn’t (that’s the royal “we”; I have no idea how you felt about it). Typecast as Jethro (and typically rejected on that basis), Baer became a producer and director in the ’70s, and was quite successful at it. He got his toe wet co-producing a TV movie called Two for the Money for Aaron Spelling in 1972. In 1974 he produced, co-wrote and starred in the surprise hit Macon County Line. Now, I knew of the existence of this movie because it was a major hit, one of those cracker car crash movies that were so popular in the mid ’70s. Never having seen it, though, I never had any idea that Baer was at the heart of it. The movie was actually record setting. Released by AIP, it earned about $30 million on an investment of a quarter mil. As we mentioned, Baer wasn’t an actual hillbilly. His father was a celebrity. He’d grown up all over the world (we are startled example, to learn that his first time on stage was in a holiday panto in Blackpool, England at the age of 12). But he was savvy enough to try to escape being Jethro in baby steps.

The following year there was a sequel Return to Macon County, in which Baer was not involved but surely received a percentage. Instead, he chose to writer, produce, direct, and act in a period family drama called The Wild McCullochs, with Forrest Tucker, Julie Adams,Don Grady and William Demarest from My Three Sons, Harold J. Stone, Vito Scotti,Mike Mazurki, Doodles Weaver, and Lillian Randolph. Also released by AIP, this one was not as big a hit as Macon County Line. But his next film was very known. It was Ode to Billy Jo (1976) with Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor, based on the Bobby Gentry song. Baer produced and directed this hit, which earned $27 million on a budget of just over a million. In 1979 he produced and directed the American Graffiti knockoff Hometown USA. His last known activity as a screen auteur was a 1984 attempt to adapt Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” to the big screen.

By the ’80s Baer was quite a wealthy man. He retired to Lake Tahoe, and spent the ensuing decades attempting to get various schemes for Jethro and Beverly Hillbillies themed casinos and restaurants off the ground. In 2015 fellow Beverly Hillbillies castmate Donna Douglas passed away leaving Baer as the sole surviving cast member. I contemplated doing an obit piece on Douglas at the time, but opted not to. But now, I HAVE to do a piece on her! Having written one on Baer, leaving her out just wouldn’t be fair!