Paul Henning

Paul William Henning (September 16, 1911 – March 25, 2005) was an American producer and writer. Most famous for the successful TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, he was crucial in the development of several "rural" comedies for CBS.

Early life

Henning was born and grew up on a farm in Independence, Missouri. While working in a drugstore as a teenager, he met future President Harry S. Truman, who advised him to become a lawyer. Although he did attend the Kansas City School of Law, his ambition was to be a singer on the radio. When the local radio station KMBZ (KMBC at the time) had no money for writers to create the "filler" between songs, he became a writer as well as a singer.

Television writer

Writing proved the more lucrative of the two and he abandoned singing, eventually writing for such series as Fibber McGee & Molly and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, and later such television series as The Dennis Day Show, The Real McCoys, and The Andy Griffith Show. Henning was also the creator, writer and producer of The Bob Cummings Show, where he first met many of the actors who were subsequently to appear in his later series. Another series produced by Henning was The Ray Bolger Show. He also wrote or co-wrote such feature films as Lover Come Back (1961), for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) (but lost to William Inge), and also wrote for Bedtime Story (1964).

The Beverly Hillbillies

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American sitcom originally broadcast on CBS for nine seasons from September 26, 1962, to March 23, 1971. The series stars Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr. as a poor backwoods family who move to Beverly Hills, California, after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by writer Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired country-cousin series on CBS: Petticoat Junction, and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches model of The Beverly Hillbillies.

The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among the top twenty most watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, twice ranking as the number one series of the year, with a number of episodes that remain among the most watched television episodes of all time. It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. The series remains in syndication on MeTV, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film remake by 20th Century Fox.