Television Writer-Producer Paul Henning Passes at 93: Striking Hollywood Gold with The Beverly Hillbillies and Other Treasured Television Gems

Television writer-producer Paul Henning, who began his career as a radio writer for the Burns & Allen radio show and ultimately created some of the most beloved television series in history, passed away on March 25 in Burbank at the age of 93. Henning is survived by his two daughters, a son and two grandsons. His daughter Carol said Henning, who died of natural causes, had been sick for some time.
The mastermind behind highly successful situation comedies The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, Henning created works which endure in syndication, spreading laughs across television networks around the globe.
Henning was born in Independence, Missouri, on September 16, 1911. While working behind the soda fountain at Brown's Drugstore as a teen, he met then-county judge Harry Truman, who suggested he go to law school. After graduating from Kansas City School of Law, Henning went on to work as a writer for great radio programs—including The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show—rather than become an attorney.

He moved on to television, where he worked closely with future Tonight Show director Fred de Cordova, and launched the Emmy-nominated Bob Cummings Show in 1954. The CBS debut of The Beverly Hillbillies in 1962 ushered in a stellar decade full of accolades for Henning. The show rose to number one within three weeks of its debut, earned top-ten ratings for most of its run, and garnered Henning a 1962 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy. He also composed the song lyrics and melody for the Hillbillies' infamous theme, ”Ballad of Jed Clampett,” performed by singer Jerry Scoggins and bluegrass guitar and banjo stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

Henning followed the Hillbillies with spinoff success Petticoat Junction in 1963, starring his daughter, Linda Kaye Henning. Two years later, he and writer Jay Sommers launched the uproarious Green Acres, a kind of Beverly Hillbillies-in-reverse featuring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as well-heeled city-dwellers who move back to the country to a farm in Hooterville. All three shows enjoyed successful runs until CBS canceled them in the early 1970s, as the network moved away from shows with rural, country themes.

The Missouri native moved on, happily focusing on his family and building a dream home with wife Ruth. The couple later donated land to the state of Missouri, known now as the Henning Conservation Area, a 1,534-acre outdoor wonderland of hiking and exploration trails, an observation tower that gives visitors a view of the White River hills, and other natural attractions.

In Paul Henning's Own Words: Special From the ATAS Archive of American Television

On September 4, 1997, Henning was interviewed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Archive of American Television. Below are some excerpts from his four-and-a-half hour interview. The entire interview may be screened at the archive offices at the Television Academy in North Hollywood. For more information, call (818) 509-2260.

On working as a writer for Burns & Allen:

“In radio [where the show originated] you used the imagination of your listener to picture the setting. George in the radio days depended completely upon his writers. We would tell him an idea; my chief function, at first, was ideas. I was blessed I guess with an ability to come up with ideas. Later, I was pressed into service as a writer, I was able to come up with ideas that pleased everyone.”

“In television, you had to actually create the setting and, of course, Ralph Levy, the director, was wonderful at that. He was just a genius at staging live television. Now the fact that it was live television...we didn't try to do a show every week...Gracie did not take kindly to having to memorize a script and perform it every week, so we went on every other week.”

On the genesis of The Beverly Hillbillies:

“Al Simon had just become an officer in a new company called Filmways. I think Al was president. Al called me at Universal and he said, please write a television pilot. I'd always had a great affection for Hillbillies and I think that started when I was a boy scout and went to camp at the Ozarks at a place called Nome, Missouri. [Later] we took a trip through the historic part of the country.”

“We drove to Abraham Lincoln's cabin and visited the battlefields of historic places. As we were driving along the highway, I said imagine someone from that Civil War era sitting here in this car with us going sixty miles an hour down a modern highway. That got me to thinking about transplanting someone from an era like that into a modern-day world, 1959 or 1960. I think maybe that's where the idea came from because in my experience as a boy scout in the Ozarks, I found that there were pockets of historical places where the people resisted modernization and they resisted roads being built. This was the germ of the idea. If we could find someone from a remote, protected spot, where they didn't have radio, telephone or television.”

On conceiving the title The Beverly Hillbillies:
“There had been a musical group called 'The Beverly Hillbillies' and I didn't know any of them personally. But this title stayed with me and it seemed so apt. At first I called them the New York Hillbillies or the Manhattan Hillbillies. The Beverly Hillbillies was perfect.”

On the creation of Green Acres:

“[CBS executive] Jim Aubrey said, if you will come up with a third series, I guarantee to put it on without a pilot. So when [Green Acres producer] Jay Sommers, with whom I had written a Beverly Hillbillies script, came to me with a bound volume of radio scripts dating from 1950 called Granby's Green Acres, about a banker in the city who longed to be a farmer, I said, 'I think this perfect.' We can economize by cross-pollinating. You can use the railroad and the Drucker's General Store in this Hooterville community and save a lot of money on location and sets and everything like that. And, the series could get made without a pilot.”

On CBS blanket cancellation of rural series including The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres:

“Life can't all be four-leaf clovers and I was hoping for ten years. Ten was a kind of magic number to me because I had been with George Burns and Gracie Allen for ten years and I was hoping for another solid decade, but things changed. Jim Aubrey was no longer in charge of programming. I don't know how the news got to me that the shows were canceled and as Pat Buttram [who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres] said, "they canceled everything with a tree." All the rural shows seemed to be lumped together and pushed over the falls.”

On his proudest moment:
“The proudest moment and the happiest moment of my life was when Ruth agreed to be my wife. My proudest career moment, I guess, is winning the Writers Guild Chayefsky Award. Or maybe when The Beverly Hillbillies hit number one. It's hard to say.”