Beyond that, she sued Mattel, Inc. for making a likeness without her permission…she never landed any other roles, though.
Actually she did have other roles. One famous one I remember was opposite Elvis Presley in the movie Frankie and Johnny. (Now I feel old too...)
R.I.P. Donna.
An honest to goodness Southern Belle, similar to her most famous role, Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Donna Douglas grew up in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area loving "critters." She got married soon after high school, had a son, divorced and won a couple of beauty contests, all within the span of a few years. She moved to New York and soon appeared on television series, including a well-remembered guest shot on Twilight Zone (1959) in one of the series' most famous episodes, "Eye of the Beholder", in which she plays a woman who tries to undergo a series of experimental treatments to make her beautiful, only for the treatments to fail. The twist was she was beautiful, at least to the viewers, but considered hideous to the pig people of her planet. She soon won the role of Elly May Clampett on one of the greatest situation comedies of all time, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ken Severson
Douglas was featured as the Letters Girl on "The Perry Como Show" in 1957 and as the Billboard Girl on "The Steve Allen Show" in 1959.
She landed a featured role in the 1959 film "Career," starring Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, and a bit part in the film musical "Li'l Abner." She also had a small role as Tony Randall's secretary in the 1961 romantic comedy "Lover Come Back" with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
Douglas starred in one of the most memorable episodes of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" - titled "Eye of the Beholder," it was the one in which her head is wrapped in bandages for most of the half-hour after plastic surgery aimed at fixing her "ugliness," which in fact was beauty in a universe of monsters. And she starred opposite Elvis Presley in the 1966 movie "Frankie and Johnny."
After "The Beverly Hillbillies," Douglas worked in real estate, recorded country and gospel music albums and wrote a book for children that drew on biblical themes.