I’m thinkin’ Miz Hathaway had her a trust fund an’ went West to Callyfornie to work fer fun, so it really didn’t matter what Mr. Drysdale paid 'er.
No. There were too many episodes in which she took the threat of being fired seriously for that to be true. [del]Dr. Evil[/del] Mr. Drysdale periodically had to threaten her to get her to do humiliating or unethical things.
It is interesting though that they did eventually devote an episode to women’s lib (January 26, 1971 episode), where Elly May and Granny join the women’s liberation movement, leaving Jethro and Jed to fend for themselves.
Miss Hathaway (or Jane) was definitely more of an executive assistant, according to some of the responsibilities she took on, than a mere secretary, and she seems to supervise the secretarial pool as well.
If you want to get serious, in the days before there were as many opportunities for women, someone like Miss Jane, with a good education and presumably some family money, might have taken a job as an executive assistant in a bank and use information obtained on the job to her advantage for investment purposes. There is a lot of inside information to be had if you have a little starter money and know how to use it. That would also explain why the threat of being fired was taken seriously.
Plus if she ever needed money I’m sure Jed would drop a mil on her without a second thought.
Maybe he thinks she’s Robert Culp’s sister. (Not really sure; I’m trying to remember if Miss Jane ever mentioned relatives.)
I can’t believe I remember this, but Miss Jane mentioned in one episode that before Drysdale she had been the senior secretary to the most successful insurance executive in Beverly Hills. It would seem reasonable that if she left him for Commerce Bank they’d have at least matched her salary.
Since the question’s been answered, pardon a hijack question:
How old were Jethro and Ellie supposed to be at the beginning of the show? Evidently they were younger than they looked- maybe 15 and 13 or so- due to remarks made later (which would make Jane’s flirtations with Jethro somewhat sick since she was 3 times that, while Ellie would have been downright statuatory country for 40 year old Sonny).
I think the show was originally intended to be slightly more believable. As it was it lacked Green Acres surreality but was just silly, yet it’s remembered as better than Gilligan’s Island which I find strange. (Like any family would keep that truck and rope belts- even in the hills those were only used because they were broke.)
Are you talking about what someone would make NOW with those skills, or back then? Because back then, the glass ceiling was very, very real. Women were legally paid less than men for the same work, and they were very limited in their job choices. Today, Jane Hathaway might be the president of the bank, rather than the president’s personal assistant. She’d probably do a better job of it, too. Back then, though, being the president’s personal assistant would have been the most she could have aspired to, and he could have gotten away with paying her very little, because she didn’t really have any other options. She needed a job (I assume) and the culture at the time assumed that women didn’t need as much money as men did, because they SHOULD have a man looking after them, either hubby or Daddy. Even plain Janes who didn’t have a hubby were expected to take their daily bowl of gruel and be happy with it and not ask for another one.
I remember when I first starting looking in the classified ads for job listings. It was legal then to advertise for either a man or a woman, and in fact the jobs were listed as “Help wanted-men” and “Help wanted-women”.
Yes, to me that would make the most sense. Miss Hathaway just wasn’t supposed to be a poor person, at least not by birth. To me she reminds me of my two great aunts, who both had some family money and were unmarried. Both became secretaries, one to the President of the B&O Railroad and one to the president of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Both women already knew these guys as they were family friends. Both got lots of good stock and investment help and had very happy, productive lives. I really think they would have been shocked to think that they were any less valued than any man as they were very much respected.
It’s more than that: he would have loved giving it to her, both because he liked her and because he never especially liked being rich. The Clampetts moved to Beverly Hills because Jed & Pearl thought it would be a better environment for Jethro & Ellie Mae; I don’t think Jed & Granny ever liked it much.
As to how old the kids were: I’m fairly sure they both started out as being in their late teens. Ellie Mae was often called an old maid, and the stupid jokes about Jethro only work if he’s a legal adult.
How poor could Miss Jane really be, if she’s a Vassar graduate? That place isn’t exactly cheap, and never has been. I suppose she might have gotten a scholarship, but all those tweedy, classic-looking suits and her utter comfort dealing with the rich and famous smells like family money to me. And then there’s the place on the beach, her immediate purchase of the dune buggy when her convertible is seized–that doesn’t exactly sound like she’s poor, you know?
There were two sequels to the show. In the absolutely and objectively horrible TV movie Return of the Beverly Hillbillies (1981) Miss Jane had left the Commerce Bank and gone to work for the Department of Energy (then relatively new). Nancy Kulp, Buddy Ebsen and Donna Douglas reprised their roles; Max Baer wisely sat this one out and Irene Ryan and Raymond “Drysdale” Bailey were dead.
It’s one of the worst TV reunion movies of all time- second only perhaps to Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island which came out around the same time. In the plot Jed had returned to the mountains when Granny died (Jethro [played by a different actor] and Ellie had remained in California) and Miss Jane is wanting to get a jug of Granny’s white lightnin’ to use as a gasoline alternative. One thing that makes the movie so truly awful is that while they wrote Granny’s death into the plot they replaced her with “Granny’s Ma” (Imogene Coca), and at the very end Jed finishes carving a tobacco store Indian likeness of Granny as a present for her.
In Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies, a combination reunion movie and flashback show, this was rewritten. Jed had returned to the mountains after Drysdale embezzled most of his money, though again Jethro and Ellie once again remained in California (where Ellie works in a zoo and Jethro [played by Max Baer again] has 15 children). Nancy Kulp had recently died when this was filmed (and possibly would not have done it anyway as she was not on speaking terms with Buddy Ebsen) and is seen only in flashbacks, but I don’t remember if they mentioned what had become of her. (The ‘movie’ ends with Jed- who still has some money- striking oil again on his property.)
The great riddle to me about the Clampetts though was the “fancy eatin’ room”. If a mansion has dozens of rooms, and one of them is a billiard room, it stands to reason that they also have a formal dining room- probably closer to the kitchen than the billiard room. Not even a hillbilly would see a billiard room and a formal dining room and not know which is which, plus it’s highly unlikely they wouldn’t recognize a pool table to begin with. (I know, “remind yourself it’s just a show, sit back and just relax”.)
ETA- Kulp and Ebsen’s falling out was due to his support of the other candidate in her Congressional race. Kulp, a liberal democrat, ran for the House from her native state of Pennsylvania in 1984 and stated in an interview when asked that she had the support of her Hillbilly co-stars (though she added it didn’t make much difference since she was running in Pennsylvania and they were in California). Ebsen, an extremely conservative Republican (he wrote a novelin later years in which the main character pukes when she sees two men kiss), was irked by this and recorded an advertisement for her Republican opponent saying “Nancy I love ya, but you’re too liberal for me… I’m supporting [whatever his name was]”. The Republican won, which he probably would have anyway (he led throughout and it was a historically Republican district), so she probably didn’t blame him for the defeat but she felt betrayed.
That story and others about the cast (and pics of their real life houses) here if you’re interested.
It’s a Southern thing. In the South miss has ben pronounced “miz” long before women’s lib. It’s can also be used with a woman’s first name. Unless I really put emphasis on the “z” I end up pronouncing Ms as miss, but I’ve never had anyone correct me.
Back to the OP… in real world, today, for someone in her position, in that town, $100,000 / yr wouldn’t be unreasonable. .
In the remake wasn’t Miss Hathaway a vice-president instead of Drysdale’s secretary?
Still is. Half the students at my college (particularly the black ones and the country-raised white ones) call me “Mister Jon”. (I hate it and always say “Jon’s fine” as “Mr. Jon” makes me feel like I should have on a white suit and a string tie- but I understand as I was raised the same way.)
Not today, but she’d be the Executive Assistant and not a secretary. In 1960s magazines you still see ads for office products that say things like “The girls in your office will love you for getting this new mimeograph”. Obama’s grandmother was assistant branch manager in Hawaii and was the highest ranking woman in the company.
Miss Jane’s only known extravagance or recreational activity seemed to have been birdwatching, so she probably did save a good bit of her salary. I vaguely remember the episodes when Granny and Ellie moved in with her (used to wonder “they’re worth $50 million between them, why not just buy a condo… or buy the building?”) but I can’t remember the dune buggy episode- was it color or b/w?
I’m always surprised when housing prices are mentioned on old shows. There was an episode of Bewitched in which Larry Tate, expecting a huge windfall, is looking at pictures of properties- there’s a castle in England that was $300,000 and a Manhattan penthouse that’s $500,000.
If I had to guess what happened to the characters based just on the show and discounting the dubious reunion movies, it would be something like this:
Granny passed away in her sleep a couple of years after the end of the show, and was buried back in (Bugtussle?) where she was born.
At the age of 78 Jed was legally declared incompetent in a scheme by Drysdale to gain control of the family fortune. He died in a Beverly Hills nursing home in his 90s.
But Drysdale’s scheme was undermined by Miss Hathaway, who managed to get Ellie May and Jethro named the heirs to the Clampett fortune. Drysdale was imprisoned for fraud and embezzlement. He was killed in prison by gang members after trying to cheat them of protection money.
Miss Hathaway took over control of the bank in the mid 1970s and became one of the most successful female financiers in the US.
Jethro was taken in by a succession of beautiful but avaricious wives whose alimony payments left him destitute. He ended up being supported by Ellie May.
Ellie May married the Navy diver she’d dated during the show. She maintained a huge menagerie of animals at her Beverly Hills home and eventually became a prominent figure in animal related causes and charities. She had a son and a daughter who became minor celebrities in music and acting.
And the occasional leaked porn tape.
Ellie’s kids…maybe, but not likely.
But not Ellie herself. She was forever innocent. Virginal, in fact; her child were sired by love and lollipops and an iron will wrapped in cream cheese.