Max Baer, Jr.: ''We were not paid very well'' on the Beverly Hillbillies

Swimming pools? Nope! Movie stars? Definitely not!

CBS Television Distribution

You'd think starring in a classic TV show would set you up for life, right? Maybe not "chauffeured Rolls Royce"-levels of wealth, but at the very least, you'd expect an actor would be taken care of. For many stars of TV's yesteryear, that was the case. They might not have been millionaires living in mansions, but they certainly weren't destitute, either.

But for a few of television's brightest figures, the money fountain never totally turned on to begin with. For others, legal issues prevented them from feeling the true benefits of their bounty. There are plenty of examples of TV luminaries who you'd hope would be set for life, but are in reality just scraping by.

That was the case for Max Baer Jr., who starred as Jethro Bodine in The Beverly Hillbillies. While his onscreen counterpart might've swam in that swanky oil money, the truth was Baer's real life was far from Beverly Hills.

In Stephen Cox's retrospective, The Beverly Hillbillies, Max Baer Jr. set the record straight regarding how his funds were misused after the show went off the air.

When asked about how lucrative his nine years on one of TV's biggest comedies were, Baer said, "They were lucrative for my ex-wife. She got everything.

"Actually, I didn't make that much," he continued. "The first year of the series I made $500 a show. Second year of the series, I made $600 or $700 a show. Third year, we were the number one show in the country, I think I made $800.

So if the star of the show didn't make all the money, who did?

Most of the people who made the money were Filmways, the company who owned it, and Paul Henning, the writer/creator. Paul put in an awful lot of work on it, and I'm sure he deserved the majority of it. However, I believe even in that time, that as a cast, we were not paid very well. There were fringe benefits. We could go out and earn extra money. But we didn't earn enough for what we did."

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10 Comments

JERRY6 1 month ago
that is pretty sad I was making 400-500 a week in the 70's working construction , always thought the actors made much more the Max did . These days the actors make insane money , just imagine what the big guys make
top_cat_james_1 1 month ago
That's nowhere near as bad as the Monkees had it, who not only received a paltry $400 a week (for a grueling schedule filming the series and recording songs that often took 12 hours a day), but also garnered just a tiny fraction of album royalties and merchandising profits, with the producers and Screen Gems keeping the lion's share for themselves.
The 3 Stooges had it worse than anyone. They made about 8 films a year, but were paid a flat fee (no royalties) of $60,000 - to be divided by the three for ALL the movies. The studio 'powers that be' enjoyed taking advantage of the Stooges financially, keeping them underpaid throughout their entire careers. Even when the trio's film shorts enjoyed a sudden revival on television, Cohn left them “out in the cold,” earning millions in profits while the Stooges made nothing. VERY sad story.
Bapa1 1 month ago
Back then, hardly anybody on tv got residuals. It began to change slowly in the 70's. But look now (Seinfeld, Friends etc.)
15inchBlackandWhite 1 month ago
Years ago I heard Jim Backus on a talk show making this same point. He had ceased to receive a penny from Gilligan's Island years earlier, and it was one of the most heavily rerun series on the planet. I think SAG to a large degree addressed this in subsequent CBAs.
I read Russ Johnson's auto-biography, and he said the same thing. They got paid for making the initial episode, got a little something when it got rerun the same season, and that was it. Zero residuals.
FrankensteinLover 1 month ago
They were all so good at their Roles and its sad how so many back then were treated including the Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy.
WSCMeTV 1 month ago
Times sure change....I recall Jerry Seinfeld getting $1million per episode and ultimately the actors on Friends got that amount as well....
Patti100 WSCMeTV 1 month ago
And The Bang Bang actors got $1million per episode
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