Donna Douglas Reminisced On Her Night With Elvis Presley

Donna Douglas Reminisced On Her Night With Elvis Presley

Uh, it’s still in syndication. And this young lady starred on that show. Would you please welcome Miss Donna Douglas. >> Donna Douglas looked like the kind of star Hollywood could easily label. She was beautiful, sweet, southern, and forever remembered as Ellie May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. But behind that famous smile was a life with harder turns than fans expected.

She was a woman trying to protect herself in a town that loved to turn people into images. Then came Elvis Presley. Their time together on Frankie and Johnny became one of the most talked about chapters of her life. Not because of some loud scandal, but because of the quiet connection people still wonder about.

Join us as we look back at Donna Douglas’s rise, her loves, her faith, her Hollywood battles, and the Elvis chapter that never stopped following her. The Louisiana girl Hollywood never saw coming. Before Donna Douglas became the sweet face millions knew from The Beverly Hillbillies, she was Doris Ione Smith from Pride,  a small community in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.

She was born on September 26th, 1932, the younger of two children and the only daughter in her family. Her father, Emmett Radcliffe Smith Sr., worked most of his  life for Standard Oil. Her mother, Elma Robinson Smith, had once worked as a telephone operator. Donna’s world was not built around movie sets, bright lights, or famous people.

It was a simple southern life, and that mattered because she carried that feeling with her for the rest  of her career. She attended Redemptorist High School, where she played softball and basketball and became part of the school’s first graduating class. She later said that when she left high school, she was naive, idealistic, shy, and awkward.

That line tells us a lot. Donna was not the kind of young woman who walked into life thinking she already knew everything. She came from a poor home and her family did not even have a car. She once told the Times-News, “I had never been away from home. I grew up poor. My parents didn’t have a car. I never had a background for show business.

But even then, there was something about her that people noticed.” In 1957, she was named Miss Baton Rouge and Miss New Orleans. Those titles helped open a door, but Donna’s early life still stayed close to her heart. She was a tomboy, raised with one older brother and male cousins, swinging from vines and playing ball.

Years later, that same country spirit would make her famous. But before Hollywood found her, Donna had to make one painful choice that changed everything. The painful decision before Hollywood. Long before Donna became a television star, she had already lived through marriage, motherhood, and heartbreak. In 1951, she married Roland Bourgeois, Jr.

She was still very young and at that point,  her life could have gone in a very different direction. In 1954,  she had her only child, Danny Bourgeois. That same year, her marriage ended in divorce. For Donna, it was not just the end of a relationship. It was the beginning of a very hard season.

She wanted to chase a career, but she was also a mother. So, she made the difficult choice to send her son to live with her parents while she went to New York to pursue show business. That decision could not have been easy. It showed both her dream and her struggle. She was not coming from comfort. She did not have Hollywood family connections.

She did not have a clear map. She simply had a chance, a little courage, and a lot of uncertainty. Her first trip north showed just how new everything was to her. At the New Orleans Airport, a man asked if she wanted to change her plane reservation so she could arrive an hour earlier. Donna later remembered, “I didn’t even know they had two airports  in New York.

” It sounds sweet now, but in that moment it showed how far she was from home. She had grown up in a Christian house, but she later said her faith was not strong yet. “I loved Jesus, but I didn’t know the word of God,” she told the Times News. Once she arrived in New York, that began to change.  She made a deeper commitment and decided to trust God with her future.

“I made a commitment to God,” she said. And soon, that future began to move fast. The city that gave Donna her first  chance. In New York, Donna did not start at the top. She began the way many hopeful performers did, by taking whatever honest  chance came her way. One of her first jobs was as an illustration model for toothpaste advertisements.

It was not a movie role. It was not the kind of work that makes someone a legend overnight, but it got her noticed. And more importantly, it placed her in the world she wanted to enter. While she was in the city, she also began taking acting lessons. That tells us something important about her. Donna had beauty, but she was not trying to live on beauty alone.

She wanted to learn the work. In 1957, she appeared as the letters girl on NBC’s The Perry Como Show. In 1959, she became the billboard girl on NBC’s The Steve Allen Show. These appearances helped her face become familiar to viewers and people  in the business. New York photographers and newspaper reporters even awarded her the Miss Byline crown.

 And she wore it on CBS’s The Ed Sullivan  Show. That moment helped lead to something bigger. Producer Hal B. Wallis saw her on Sullivan and cast her as Marjorie Burke in the 1959 drama Career, starring Anthony Franciosa, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine. Around the same time, Donna also appeared in the musical comedy Li’l Abner and later played a secretary in Lover Come Back with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

She had also appeared on The Phil Silvers Show in 1958, credited as Doris Bourgeois, using her married name from her first marriage. The pieces were coming together. She was not famous yet, but she was no longer just the shy girl from Louisiana. Still, television would soon give her a stranger, darker moment before it gave her the role of a lifetime.

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Go to brainresearchreport.com or it’s linked in the description below. If this touches close to home, it’s exactly the kind of information you’ve been looking for. Back to the video now. The face that shocked television. Before The Beverly Hillbillies made Donna a household name, she had already built more television experience than many people realize.

She appeared on several shows in the late 1950s and early 1960s including US Marshal, Tightrope, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Bachelor Father, Route 66, Thriller, and Mr.  Ed. She also had a recurring role in 1961 on Checkmate as Barbara Simmons. That series followed two friends, Don Corey and Jed Sills, who ran a high-priced detective agency  in San Francisco with help from British criminologist Carl  Hyatt.

But one of Donna’s most remembered early appearances came from The Twilight Zone. In the episode Eye of the Beholder, she played a patient in a hospital who has plastic surgery because society sees her as ugly. The tension builds while her face is wrapped in bandages. The doctors and nurses speak around her, but their faces are hidden.

Then the bandages come off and the audience sees Donna’s beautiful face. Yet inside the story, she screams in horror. Then the camera pulls back and reveals that the medical staff look strange and frightening by our standards. In their world, Donna is the one who is considered ugly. It was a haunting role and for many viewers the shock never left them.

She also appeared in another Twilight Zone episode in 1962. By then Donna had proven she could do more than smile for a camera. She had presence. She had timing. She had a face people remembered. But even with all that work she was still not a major star. Then producer Paul Henning began developing a show about a poor hillbilly  family that strikes oil, moves to Beverly Hills, and tries to live among the rich.

Hundreds of actresses wanted one part. Donna was about to fight for it. The crash that almost cost Donna everything. When Paul Henning’s new show was being cast Donna was one of around 500 young actresses considered for the role of Ellie May Clampett. At the time she had moved from New York to Hollywood and was still trying to find the right break.

She had prayed for a role on a family-oriented show and The Beverly Hillbillies seemed to fit that wish almost perfectly. But just when the door opened something frightening happened. After her audition Donna was in an auto accident and ended up in the hospital for more than 2 weeks. That could have ended everything before it began.

The producers had narrowed the choice to five young women. And because of her hospital stay Donna only had a couple of days left to screen test. She later remembered how weak she still was. But she refused to miss the chance. “I was pretty wobbly but you better know I was there.” She told the Times News. While she was recovering she prayed again and asked God to let her have the role if she ever got out of medical care.

Her strength in that moment says a lot about her. She was not walking into the audition with perfect energy and perfect timing. She was walking in after pain, fear, and uncertainty. Still, she showed up. And she won the part. That role became Elly May Clampett, the beautiful, kind, animal-loving daughter of Jed Clampett.

Donna later said Elly May felt close to who she really was. She had grown up a tomboy, and she understood that countryside. But winning the role was only the beginning. Donna had fought her way into the part, but she could not have known how fast that part would take over her  life.

 Once Elly May reached television screens, everything around her changed almost overnight. Fame, fans, and the cast that became family. The Beverly Hillbillies premiered in 1962, and became one of the biggest shows on television. For 2 years in a row, it was TV’s top program, and it stayed popular through its nine-season run from 1962 to 1971.

The story was simple, but hard to resist. A backwoods family strikes oil, becomes rich, moves to Beverly Hills, and then tries to understand a world that does not understand them, either. Donna’s Elly May was a huge part of that charm. She was beautiful, sweet, strong, innocent, and completely unaware of her own bombshell image.

She wore the flannel shirt and tight jeans, but the character was never played as cold or selfish. She loved animals, or as the show called them, critters. That was why the role felt so natural on her. Fans believed that country charm was not just acting. They felt like they knew her. The attention came fast, and Donna admitted it was a lot to handle.

There were many adjustments to make, she said in an interview  with the Daily News. One day, no one recognized me on the street, and the next, people were coming up to me just to say hello and have me touch their children. She learned to see that attention as love for Ellie May, not just for Donna herself.

 She said, “I had to learn to accept that kind of thing as if it were directed toward Ellie May and not toward me personally.” Donna received more fan mail than any other cast member, spending hours signing photos and answering people. Behind the scenes, the show also gave her relationships that stayed  important for decades.

Apart from the later public tension between Nancy Kulp and Buddy Ebsen, the cast was known to be close. Donna, Max Baer Jr., and Buddy Ebsen attended Irene Ryan’s memorial service after her death in 1973. Irene had played Granny, and during the show’s run, she made Christmas special by putting on a huge Christmas spread  for the cast and their families every year.

 Donna also formed a deep bond with Buddy Ebsen, who played  her father, Jed Clampett. In real life, he became something close to a father figure for her. She later told the Lincoln Times News that he was a wonderful man, very much like my own father, a quiet, reserved, and caring person. Donna and Max remained close friends for the rest of her life.

Max later said they were not the kind of people who texted, but they would call each other when there was something to share. Around the time of her death, one of Donna’s comments was, “Tell Maxie I thought I was going to get better.” But while the cast gave Donna comfort, the show itself gave her a problem. America loved Elly May so much that Hollywood began to forget Donna had other sides.

The fame that came with a price. Donna always understood the gift and the trap of Elly May. In a 2003 interview with Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict, she explained it clearly. “Elly May was like a slice out of my life,” she said. “She is a wonderful little door opener for me because  people love her and they love the Hillbillies.

Even to this day, it’s shown every day somewhere. But as with any abilities, she may open a door for you, but you have to have substance or integrity to advance you through that door.” That was Donna’s way of saying fame was not enough by itself. You needed  character behind it. Still, Hollywood had a hard time seeing her outside the part.

After playing Elly May for 9 years, she was typecast. She also had personal limits because of her faith. She did not want roles that felt in bad taste, immoral, or built around nudity. She said she wanted high-quality work, and many scripts did not meet that standard for her. She once explained that on The Beverly Hillbillies, even though Elly May’s outfits were fitted and playful, there were still limits.

“I could show no cleavage or buns or belly button,” she told the Times News, “and we couldn’t say anything out of line.” Back then, Donna said actors were not allowed to change lines the way many do now. Producers were in charge. So, when the show ended, she was left with a strange  mix of blessings and limits.

She had become one of TV’s most loved women. But the world wanted Elly May again and again. And just when it seemed Hollywood only wanted one version of her, Donna got a chance to step outside Beverly Hills and into Elvis Presley’s world. It was not the career reset she may have hoped for, but it became the chapter people would never  stop whispering about.

When Elly May entered Elvis’s world, during the 1966 summer break  from The Beverly Hillbillies, Donna took her only starring feature film role. She played Frankie opposite Elvis Presley in Frankie and Johnny, a  Western musical set on a Mississippi River riverboat. Elvis played Johnny, a charming performer and gambler whose bad luck keeps pulling him into trouble.

Donna’s Frankie was his girlfriend, and the story mixed romance, jealousy, comedy, music, and mistaken identity. In the plot, Johnny visits a gypsy camp with his friend Cully and hears that a red-haired woman will bring him luck. That creates trouble because Frankie is blonde, while another woman, Nellie Bly, has red hair.

Johnny starts believing Nellie can help him win, and Frankie becomes jealous. The story builds through riverboat shows, masked  costumes, gambling, and a stage shooting that almost becomes real. At one point, Frankie throws Johnny’s winnings out a window in anger. Later, a real bullet  is placed in a stage gun.

But Johnny survives because it hits a lucky medallion Frankie had given him. The film reached number 40 on the Variety weekly national box office list for 1966 and had an estimated budget of $4.5 million. It It was directed by Frederick De Cordova who later became director and producer of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.

For Donna, this was a huge moment. She had worked with major names before, but Elvis was different. He was not just another actor. He was Elvis. The film was only a moderate success  and did little to push Donna’s movie career forward. But behind the scenes,  something about her connection with Elvis became far more memorable than the box office.

But the real story  was not just what happened under the lights. Once the cameras stopped, people began noticing something quieter between Donna and Elvis. Something that felt less like a movie scene and more like a connection neither of them had to perform. The special connection behind the scenes. The reason fans still talk about Donna and Elvis is not just because they appeared together in Frankie and Johnny.

It is because people around them noticed a special connection during filming. Elvis’s friend and hairdresser Larry Geller later said that several people thought sparks were flying. That line alone sounds like the start of a Hollywood romance story. But Geller also made it clear that the bond was not just a simple flirtation.

At lunch and during breaks, Elvis and Donna would spend time together in deep conversation. Geller said, “At lunch and at breaks, Elvis and Donna would get into some heavy spiritual conversations. They did have a lot in common and several people thought sparks were flying. That is where the story becomes more interesting.

Elvis was searching for meaning in his life and Donna had her own deep interest in faith. Geller, who was also seen as Elvis’s  spiritual advisor, said the two shared important ideas. He explained, “Even though Elvis respected Donna, he only regarded her in a professional capacity and held her in high esteem.

I used to visit her in her dressing room. We would meditate and discuss various philosophic  subjects that we shared. So, while some people may have wondered if there was romance, the stronger point is that Donna gave Elvis something rare on a film set. She could talk with him about things beyond fame, music, and the usual Hollywood noise.

” Geller said both were studying the works of Paramahansa Yogananda and were close to the president Daya Mata. At Graceland, Elvis did not always have people around him who shared those interests. That may be why his conversations with Donna stood out. She was not just his co-star. For that brief time, she was someone who understood a side of him others often missed.

But while that brief Elvis chapter kept fans curious, Donna still had to return to the role that had changed her life. And soon, the show that made her famous would come to an end in a way she never really saw coming. The end of the show that changed her life. When The Beverly Hillbillies ended after 9 years on CBS, Donna was not fully prepared for it.

The cast had been told different things and the ending felt uncertain. “I didn’t know it was going to end,” she said. “They kept telling us we would be coming back for next season. And then they would say no and kept seesawing back and forth. We never had a farewell  finale. That made the goodbye feel unfinished.

After the show, Donna took a few roles in the 1970s. She appeared on Night Gallery, Love, American Style, Adam-12, and McMillan and Wife. Later, in the 1980s, she appeared as herself on The Nanny. She also joined Nancy Kulp and Buddy Ebsen in the 1981 reunion movie, Return of the Beverly Hillbillies. Max Baer Jr.

 did not take part and by then Irene Ryan and Raymond Bailey had died. In 1992, Donna and Max attended Buddy Ebsen’s 84th birthday celebration in Beverly Hills. In 1993, Donna, Buddy, and Max reunited on the Jerry Springer show. And later for the CBS special, The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies. Donna also appeared at fan conventions and trade fairs.

 And fans never stopped connecting her to Ellie May. In 1971, the same year the final original episodes aired, she married Robert M. Leeds, who had directed The Beverly Hillbillies. They did not have children together and they divorced in 1980. Her only child remained Danny from her first marriage. After acting slowed down, Donna earned a real estate license, but real estate did not last long.

 She felt she had to tell clients both the good and bad things about houses and that did not fit the business culture in Los Angeles. So Donna’s life started moving in a new direction. One that fit her heart more than Hollywood ever did. And that is where Donna’s story quietly changed shape. When Donna chose faith over  fame. After Hollywood stopped giving Donna the kind of roles she wanted, she did not simply disappear.

She built a new life around faith, music, children, and speaking. She often performed as a gospel singer and traveled to church groups, youth groups, schools, camps, colleges, conventions, and trade fairs across the United States. One focus of her charitable work was supporting Christian children’s homes, mostly in the American South.

She recorded several gospel albums beginning in 1982. Her Christian albums included Donna Douglas Sings Gospel, Donna Douglas Sings Gospel 2, Here Come the Critters, and Back on the Mountain, her final record in 1989. She also recorded a few minor country records during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1982, she enrolled at Rhema Bible Training Center in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and graduated in 1984 with an emphasis in children’s ministry.

Donna also wrote books that matched that same mission. She published Donna’s Critters and Kids, Children’s Stories with a Bible Touch, which included Bible Stories with Animals, and a coloring book for young children. In 2011, she released Miss Donna’s Mulberry Acres Farm, a story about how even an old horse can still do something meaningful.

In 2013, she published Southern Favorites with a taste  of Hollywood, a cookbook with Southern recipes from show business friends and colleagues, including Buddy Ebsen, Phyllis Diller, Valerie Harper, Debbie Reynolds, Max Baer, Pat Boone, Loretta Lynn, Gavin MacLeod, and Dolly Parton. The book also included a section on good manners called Hollywood Social Graces.

Donna enjoyed gardening, spending time with friends and family, answering fan mail, and giving back. Some people might call her post-Hillbillies career unlucky. But Donna seemed to turn every closed door into another way to serve. But even as Donna built a quieter life around faith and service, the image that made her famous never fully left her.

Ellie May  was still following her, and before long, that beloved character would pull Donna back into the headlines for a very different reason.  The legal fights behind Donna’s famous image. Even in her later years, Donna’s image as Ellie May still had power. And sometimes that led to legal fights.

In 1993, she and Curt Wilson filed a $200 million lawsuit against  Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, their production companies, Creative Artists Agency, Walt Disney Pictures, and others. They claimed the film Sister Act had been improperly taken from a property they owned. Donna and Wilson had optioned the book A Nun in the Closet in 1985 and had it developed into a screenplay.

Their suit claimed more than 100 similarities between their project and Sister Act. They said the work had been submitted several times in 1987 and 1988 to Disney, Midler’s company, and Goldberg’s company, but was rejected. They also claimed there had been offers to buy the screenplay outright. The courts later sided with the defendants.

 Then in 2011, Donna filed another federal lawsuit, this time against Mattel and CBS Consumer Products over the Elly May Barbie doll in the classic TV collection. The collection also included dolls based on Samantha Stephens from Bewitched and Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. Donna said Mattel used her name, likeness,  and image without her permission, including a photo of her as Elly May on the packaging.

She sought at least $75,000 in damages. CBS and Mattel argued that CBS had the rights to the  character and did not need her approval. The case was settled on December 27th, 2011,  and the details stayed private. Though both sides said they were content. These fights  showed something clear.

Elly May was not just an old TV role. She was still valuable decades later. And Donna, even with her sweet image, was not afraid to stand up when she felt something crossed a line. But lawsuits and headlines were only one part of Donna’s later life. Away from court papers and old TV images, the people who met her remembered something much softer.

The warmth, faith, and kindness she carried when the cameras were gone. The real Donna beyond Elly May and Elvis.  In her final years, Donna returned close to her Louisiana roots. She moved back to the Baton Rouge area around 2005. And people remembered her as warm, graceful, and full of faith. Her niece by marriage,  Charlene Smith, said she was always happy, always beautiful.

You always saw her with all her makeup on. She never looked her age. Others who met Donna in daily life remembered the same kind of person. In Huntington Beach, where she had lived before returning home, people recalled seeing her at the post office or grocery store. One man remembered that she would bring mail, possibly fan mail, and also bring goodies, chocolates, wrapped  candy, or small Christmas gifts.

He said Donna beamed with God’s love and would hug people, smile, giggle, and say,  “God bless you.” Another person who saw her shopping remembered her as gracious and classy. Dressed like a formal Ellie, with lace  dresses and bows in her hair. She never acted above people. She was simply a nice lady who happened to be Ellie May Clampett.

In her last years, Donna spoke at churches and shared her Christian testimony. Sandy Barnett, who heard her speak only months before her death, said, “She had a heart for the Lord.” Donna often told young people, “Nobody can be better you than you.” She said, “If you want God’s best for your life, it’s out  there for you.

That’s what my life shows, that you don’t have to compromise.” Donna died of pancreatic cancer at Baton Rouge General Hospital on January 1st, 2015. She was 82. She was buried at Bluff Creek Cemetery  in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. Donna Douglas was never just Ellie May, and she was never just the woman who once stood beside Elvis.

 She was a pageant winner, a young mother, a working actress, a singer, a writer, and a woman who refused to trade her values for easier fame. And that is what made her Elvis chapter so interesting. People looked for sparks and scandal, but the real story was quieter. Two southern stars, both carrying heavy public lives, found something rare between scenes.

 Honest conversation, respect, and a side of Donna that fame never changed. So, what surprised you more about Donna Douglas? How much she lived beyond Ellie May, or the deeper side of her bond with Elvis Presley? And be honest, do you think fans focused  too much on the rumors and not enough on the real woman behind that famous smile? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

And don’t forget to hit  like, subscribe, and stay tuned for more incredible stories from Hollywood’s fascinating history. See you next time.