Elly Mae made a Thibodaux touch

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There are those people whose work puts them in a position to meet interesting people who have touched a whole lot of other folks in a good way, and that is one of the things Kathy Benoit likes so much about her work as president and CEO of the Thibodaux Chamber of Commerce.

The organization has 600 members and just knowing a lot of them is a big perk for Kathy. She gets to hobnob with local business owners and the government leaders and sometimes these people can be a really big deal.

And then sometimes you get to spend some time with someone who at some point – even in your childhood – had a profound effect.


So, back in 2010, Kathy had just such an experience when she drove actress Donna Douglas from a hotel to the Warren J. Harang Municipal Auditorium in Thibodaux. Douglas was the keynote speaker for the group’s annual awards banquet.

“She truly was a delight,” Kathy said of the actress, relating the impression that was made not only during the speech but during the car ride. “She was so down to earth, so friendly and so wise.”

Like a lot of other people who learned that Donna Douglas died last week, the actress’ place in Kathy’s memory – in addition to being an honored guest, of course – was for the signature role she played on television for a 9-year run, as Elly Mae Clampett on the CBS series “The Beverly Hillbillies.”


Like millions upon millions of other people, Kathy gathered with her family around the old bubble-screen, black-and-white television set in a Schriever living room.

When the theme – probably second in TV theme popularity only to Gilligan’s Island – would come on the television, the family often sang along.

As was the custom for some TV shows then, the theme related the set-up of the program, telling its back-story.


“Come and listen to a story ‘bout a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer barely kept his fam’ly fed … “

“The family would not miss a Saturday evening,” Kathy recalled, reminiscing about the joy the show gave her, parents, Andrew and Claire Babin, her sister Cindy and brother Keith. A younger sister, Denise, didn’t happen along until later but surely got to catch the reruns.

The show – in case you were not already aware – was a fish-out-of-water tale about country folks who struck oil in the hills and so relocated to Beverly Hills, where their rural ways placed them in square conflict with the customs of city folks.


Elly Mae was newly-minted oil tycoon Jed Clampett’s daughter, a home-grown tomboy who broke the hearts of movie star suitors, couldn’t cook worth a lick and never found a critter she didn’t want to bring home. Series creator Paul Henning’s characters were larger than life, as any viewer of the series can attest, but critics said the way Donna Douglas handled the Elly Mae role made that even more so.

Born Doris Smith in the East Baton Rouge Parish community of Pride in 1933, the future Elly Mae made the beauty contest circuit before embarking on a film and television career. There had been an appearance on “The Twilight Zone,” and she worked with Elvis Presley in the film “Frankie and Johnnie.” There were bit roles in other television shows and, after “The Beverly Hillbillies” completed its run, appearances on other programs. But it was the Elly Mae role that brought her regularly into everybody’s living room.

So for a lot of people at the Thibodaux Chamber banquet, the appearance of Donna Douglas was more like watching a speech given by an old friend.


“I thoroughly enjoyed her company,” Kathy Benoit said of their brief time together. “We talked about her experiences, and I remember her saying that her most important work was the work she had done with children.”

At the banquet, Douglas’ speech centered on faith-based work related to her devout Christianity.

And so when Kathy Benoit learned of Douglas’ death last week from pancreatic cancer, there was sadness, but there was also cherished personal memory and a brief regret.


As the hostess for events like the chamber banquet there are protocols to be followed, and Kathy is all about propriety and following those protocols.

“I didn’t really want to ask, but I regret not having gotten her autograph,” Benoit acknowledged. “But it just did not seem appropriate.”