President Eisenhower Tried to Hook Up With This ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ Star

If you can’t believe the guy who played Jed Clampett and Barnaby Jones, who can you trust?

MeTV recently dug up an old episode of The Howard Stern Show in which Robin Quivers passed along some steaming hot Beverly Hillbillies tea. “Buddy Ebsen, he’s leaking information now,” Quivers reported in 2001. “Buddy Ebsen now says that the president, Dwight David Eisenhower, had a thing for (TV daughter) Elly Mae. When he met up with him, Ike kept asking him if he could get Elly Mae’s phone number. (Eisenhower asked Ebsen) what it was like to get to hug her all the time?”

Wasn’t Eisenhower a little old for Donna Douglas, the actress who played Elly Mae? Definitely, considering that The Beverly Hillbillies didn’t begin airing until he was out of office. Irene Ryan, who played Granny, would have been more age-appropriate. “They say he was in his 70s,” Quivers said, “and it was not long before he died.”

Did Ebsen cough up the digits? Quivers didn’t have the lowdown, but Ike definitely had connections — he somehow ended up seated next to Douglas at the Bob Hope Classic. Did Mamie know?

Weirdly, Douglas wasn’t the only blonde sitcom star connected to Eisenhower. Elizabeth Montgomery, star of Bewitched, also had an unlikely association. Her father, actor and director Robert Montgomery, was Ike’s television coach when he ran for president in the 1950s. Robert was not only an active member of the Republican Party but also a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  

Elizabeth Montgomery, unlike Douglas, was unlikely to find herself next to Eisenhower at a golf event. “At some point, she realized that her father had been very political,” said her fourth and final husband, Robert Foxworthy, “and she was kind of motivated to oppose him.” 

That meant the actress who played Samantha Stevens, known for her liberal activism, would have opposed Eisenhower as well. 

At least when it came to sitcom stars, not everyone liked Ike.