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SOUTHERN VOICE
SEPTEMBER 23/1993
THEARTS & ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE OF SOUTHERN VOICE
RETURN of the
CLAMPETTS
But this time, will Miss Hathaway go after Elly May?
By D A V1
An the ’50s, TV had Donna Reed and her nice, nuclear
family. They gave way in the ’60s to the Warhol-like camp
and kaleidoscope escapades of “Laugh-In,” “Get Smart” and
“Lost In Space.” And though, as the ’70s started, TV made
way for depictions of racial and feminist struggles, with shows
such as “Maude” and “All In The Family,” one ’60s series
persevered into the new decade—“The Beverly Hillbillies.”
The Clampetts. Granny, Jethro, Elly May and Jed, the
poor mountaineers who were shootin’ at some food when up
from the ground came a-bubblin’ crude. Their oil wealth took
them to Beverly Hills and into any number of silly escapades
with Mr. Drysdale, a greedy banker, and his loyal secretarial
sidekick, Miss Jane Hathaway.
This week, a Film incarnation of “The Beverly Hillbillies”
opens. Jim Varney stars as Jed, Cloris Leachman as Granny,
Erika Eleniak as Elly May and Dabney Coleman as Mr.
Drysdale. And in a bit of casting fraught on several levels with
irony of a sexual orientation, Lily Tomlin, the dowager dar
ling of the gay and lesbian community despite the fact that she
is somewhat reticent about coming out, will portray the decid-
edly-butch Miss Jane.
So here in the Gay ’90s, might Miss Lily bring Miss Jane
out of the closet? This time, shouldn’t she be smitten with the
voluptuous Elly May, instead of carrying an unrequited torch
for big, dumb Jethro?
That’s not likely, of course. Yet the fact that the idea
exists even as a remote, albeit wishful, possibility is evidence
of how we are evolving as a society. Such a thing would not
D STORY
even have been discussed back in the ’60s when, according to
Tomlin, nobody was gay, just shy.
L
Ln the television series, Miss Jane was played by another
handsome woman who never actually came out either, re
spected character actress Nancy Kulp.
The late Kulp had already established herself prior to
joining the “Hillbillies” cast in films such as “Forever Dar
ling,” ‘The Three Faces of Eve,” and “The Parent Trap.” Her
co-stars on “The Beverly Hillbillies” included Buddy Ebsen
as Jed, Irene Ryan as Granny, Donna Douglas as Elly May,
Max Baer, Jr. as Jethro and Raymond Bailey as Mr. Drysdale.
“No matter how successful you seem to be,” Kulp told TV
GUIDE in an interview before her death, “nothing has really
changed if no change has taken place within yourself. I was
just a good character actress and I don’t consider myself a
comedienne. I’m an actress. I make people laugh, but this is a
gift.”
Kulp’s insight into her own talent could well be a testi
mony to Tomlin, who is basically a superb character actress
herself with a knack for making her audiences laugh, much as
she did in her Ernestine persona on that other ’60s hit, “Laugh-
In.”
Another attribute Kulp shared with Tomlin is that she
guarded her privacy just as Fiercely, if not more so, than Lily
does. Commenting once in a print interview, Kulp reveled in
her anonymity: “The neighbors would shout, ‘Hey, Miss
Nancy Kulp, the first Miss Jane, squared off against
Buddy Ebsen—on screen and in real life.
Hathaway,’...but they never really spoke to me. I [had] more
privacy...[then] than;..Fve’ever[had]. My hometown news
paper never even mentioned my name.”
And Kulp, professional until the end, added: “Comedy
has to be played so seriously. You can’t just play it for
laughs—you have to be honest. I [didn’t] get too broad.”
After leaving “The Beverly Hillbillies” behind, the clos
eted Kulp made an unsuccessful run for Congress as a Demo
crat, losing to a Republican opponent who was endorsed
publicly by her co-star, Ebsen, a Reaganite.
When CBS ran a retrospective on “The Beverly Hillbil
lies” earlier this summer, Kulp, who died several years ago,
was sadly absent. Yet an ailing Ebsen was reunited with Baer
(in his First appearance as Jethro since the series ended),
Cousin Roy Clark and a matronly Douglas, whose Elly May
character was still single.
Now that we think about it, when Douglas appeared in the
ill-fated “Return of the Beverly Hillbillies” (a stinker some
times shown on USA Network), Elly May was also single,
though Douglas was in real-life divorcing “Hillbillies” direc
tor Bob Leeds.
Do we see a pattern here?
Could Elly May actually be a tomboy-tumed-lipstick les
bian herself?
Tomlin plays Miss Jane to Dabney Coleman’s Mr. Drysdale
46T
J. he Beverly Hillbillies” gave Kulp real security for the
First time in her life. As Kulp told TV GUIDE back then: “The
big thing that this show has given me is prestige...I’ve de
cided to relax and enjoy it. Who knows—maybe next year
people will be saying ‘Whatever happened to Nancy Kulp’?”
Her security, of course, would have been destroyed in that
day and age by even the slightest speculauon over her private
life. In the ’90s, as k.d. lang has proven, that’s no longer
necessarily the case. Today, an openly lesbian entertainer can
enchant the American public. What makes the phenomenon
of k.d. lang possible is the fact that celebrities, such as
“Bewitched’s” Dick Sargent and others, have Finally taken
that ultimate step and dispelled any doubts.
Of course, Miss Lily—and in all likelihood the makers of
“The Beverly Hillbillies” movie—haven’t realized that yet.
Well, there’s always the sequel.
David Story, an Atlanta writer and frequent contributor to
Southern Voice, is the author of "America on the Rerun: TV
Shows That Never Die," due soon in bookstores.