Paul Henning

Creator of 'The Beverly Hillbillies'

Paul Henning, writer and producer: born Independence, Missouri 16 September 1911; married 1939 Ruth Barth (died 2002; one son, two daughters); died Burbank, California 25 March 2005.

The Beverly Hillbillies was one of American television's most successful sitcoms of all time and a worldwide hit. It featured the Clampett family, who struck oil in their backwoods ranch in the Ozarks mountains of Arkansas and moved with their new-found wealth to an upmarket neighbourhood.

Paul Henning, the writer and producer who created Jed Clampett and his clan, and sent them on the journey to Beverly Hills in a 1921 flatbed truck after striking "black gold" and a $25m fortune, even wrote the catchy theme song:

Come 'n' listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed

A poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed

Then one day he was shootin' for some food

And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude

Accompanied by a twanging banjo, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" was sung by Jerry Scoggins and lured viewers into the adventures of country folk who could not give up their old ways. They still hunted for their dinner and grazed their animals on the lawn at their mansion.

Buddy Ebsen starred as the widowed Jed, with Irene Ryan as Granny, Donna Douglas as Jed's daughter Elly May, famous for her tight-fitting jeans, and Max Baer Jnr as his son Jethro. Henning said he had based the characters on local people he had met during Boy Scout camping trips in the Ozarks as a child, although he had originally thought of transplanting the nouveaux riches Clampetts to New York. "Then, I thought why go to New York when Beverly Hills is a few blocks away and it's just as classy?" he explained.

The series, which ran between 1962 and 1970, reached No 1 in the American television ratings in record time, becoming the most popular programme within three weeks and staying at the top for two years. Even after that, it remained in the Top Twenty. Only at the start of its sixth series did it lapse, when Jed became heir to a castle in England, but the family was soon back in Beverly Hills.

Born on a farm in Missouri in 1911, Paul Henning was working at a soda fountain when one of his customers, the future president Harry S. Truman, suggested that he study to become a lawyer. Although he took evening classes at Kansas City School of Law, Henning dropped out after two years to go into radio. He sang on a Kansas City station, KMBC, where he also found work as a writer, actor, disc jockey and newsreader.

On moving to Chicago, he scripted episodes of the 1930s radio sitcom Fibber McGee and Molly, before switching to Los Angeles and writing for Joe E. Brown and Rudy Vallee, then joining the team on Burns and Allen, the legendary radio show featuring the husband-and-wife comedy duo George Burns and Gracie Allen. When it transferred to television in 1950, Henning went with it. It was screened in Britain as The Burns and Allen Show and was only the second sitcom to be bought by BBC television.

Within two years, Henning was producing as well as writing. He made the sitcoms The Dennis Day Show (1952-54), Where's Raymond? (1953) and The Bob Cummings Show (1955-59). After contributing scripts to The Andy Griffith Show (1961) and The Real McCoys (1957-63), about a family leaving the hills of West Virginia for "Cal-i-for-ni-ay", Henning created The Beverly Hillbiillies.

He then reversed the theme in Petticoat Junction (1963-70), the story of a widow and her three daughters - one played by Henning's own daughter, Linda - who move from Beverly Hills to rural Hooterville. Later, Henning reunited the Clampetts in the television film The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies (1981), but he was not involved in the disappointing 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies, which featured an entirely new cast.

However, he did co-write, with Stanley Shapiro, the film comedies Lover Come Back (starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, 1961) and Bedtime Story (featuring Marlon Brando and David Niven, 1964). Their script for Bedtime Story was used, with few modifications, for the 1988 remake Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Steve Martin and Michael Caine.

Anthony Hayward