Search

Petticoat Junction

1963

The Bradley family are proud owners of the Shady Rest Hotel. Kate and her three young daughters do the job of running the hotel.

Dennis Fimple

He appeared in a variety of TV shows including Here Come the Brides, Petticoat Junction, Matt Houston, M*A*S*H, Centennial, Simon & Simon, Highway to Heaven, Sledge Hammer!, Knight Rider, Quantum Leap and ER. He also had roles in films such as Truck Stop Women (1974), The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), Mackintosh and T.J. (1975), Stay Hungry (1976), King Kong (1976), The Shadow of Chikara (1977), Goin' South (1978), The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch (1982) and Maverick (1994), and shared the lead in Bootleggers (1974) and Creature from Black Lake (1976). His most popular role was that of the lovable but none-too-bright Devil's Hole Gang member, Kyle Murtry, on the ABC comedy/western series, Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy. Fimple appeared in seven episodes and remains a favorite of fans of the series. In 1993-1994, he appeared as Garral in seven episodes of the Beau Bridges/Lloyd Bridges comedy/western series Harts of the West on CBS. His last role was in the 2003 Rob Zombie horror film, House of 1000 Corpses, as the foul-mouthed Grandpa Hugo. Fimple was born in Taft, California, the son of Dolly and Elmer Fimple.[1] He graduated from Taft Union High School in 1958.[2] He died in Frazier Park, California in August 2002 from a car accident.

Elvia Allman

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

Elvia Beatrice Allman was an American actress in Hollywood films and television programs for over 50 years. She is best remembered for her semi-regular roles on The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction and for being the voice of Walt Disney's Clarabelle Cow.

Edgar Buchanan

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction, Maverick

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Edgar Buchanan (March 20, 1903 – April 4, 1979) was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s. As Uncle Joe, he took over as proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel following the death of Bea Benaderet, who had played Kate Bradley. Early life Edgar Buchanan was born to Rose (Kee) Buchanan and William Edgar Buchanan Sr., DDS in Humansville, Missouri. He moved with his family to Oregon when he was seven. His father had a dental practice in Eugene, Oregon, and encouraged his son to follow suit. Buchanan Senior did not approve of his son's acting ambitions and pushed him to pursue dentistry instead. According to authors Arden and Joan Christen, Edgar's father believed "to choose a career in the theater was to settle for a life of mediocrity and uncertainty". Nevertheless, Edgar took courses in theater at the University of Oregon as a pre-med student, and was part of a Portland acting troupe in graduate school. He was also involved in the founding of the Portland Civic Theatre. In 1928, Edgar earned his DDS degree from North Pacific College School of Dentistry in Portland, Oregon, which later became Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry. During his time there, he met his future wife, Mildred "Millie" Spence (1907–1987). They married in 1928 - the same year they both graduated with dental degrees. The couple adopted a son and named him William Edgar "Buck" Buchanan III. Big changes came in 1939 when the family of three relocated their dental practice from Eugene, Oregon, to Altadena, California. There, Edgar joined the Pasadena Playhouse as an actor. Studio scouts spotted him performing at the playhouse and signed him into a seven-year deal in Hollywood. That same year, he appeared in his first film at age 36, and he left dentistry for good. Meanwhile, his wife, Dr. Millie Buchanan, DDS, took over the dental practice while also supporting her husband's new career as his talent manager. Career Buchanan appeared in more than 100 films, including Texas (1941), in which he played a dentist and appeared with William Holden and Glenn Ford and later in Penny Serenade (1941) with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942) with Ronald Colman, Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, The Man from Colorado (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), Shane (1953), She Couldn't Say No (1954), Ride the High Country (1962) with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, McLintock! (1963) with John Wayne, Move Over, Darling (1963) with Doris Day and James Garner, and Benji (1974). Death Buchanan died from a stroke complicated by pneumonia in Palm Desert, California in 1979. He was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. CLR Description above from the Wikipedia article Edgar Buchanan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Gunilla Hutton

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gunilla Hutton (May 15, 1942, Gothenburg) is a Swedish-born American actress and singer,[1] perhaps best known for her roles as the second Billie Jo Bradley (1965–66) on Petticoat Junction (1963-70) and as a regular cast member in the television series Hee Haw until 1992. She was raised in Fort Worth, Texas.[2] She appeared in Perry Mason, The Love Boat, and Murder Can Hurt You (1980). In 2015, she appeared in a MeTV commercial promoting Petticoat Junction, alongside cast members Linda Kaye Henning and Lori Saunders.

Bea Benaderet

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction, The Flintstones

Beatrice "Bea" Benaderet was an American actress born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, California. She appeared in a wide variety of television work, which included a starring role in the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction and Green Acres as Shady Rest Hotel owner Kate Bradley, supporting roles as Blanche Morton in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and as the voice of Betty Rubble during the first four seasons of The Flintstones, and in The Beverly Hillbillies as Pearl Bodine. She did a great deal of voice work in Warner Bros. animated cartoons of the 1940s/50s.

Paul Henning

Creator · Known for Petticoat Junction

Paul William Henning was an American TV producer and screenwriter. Most famous for creating the television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, he was also crucial in developing the "rural" comedies Petticoat Junction and Green Acres for CBS.

Tom Lester

Tom Lester was an American actor and evangelist. He is most remembered for his role as Eb Dawson on the 1965-1971 television series Green Acres. He also appeared as the Eb Dawson character in six 1966-1967 episodes of Petticoat Junction and three 1968 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Pat Woodell

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

Pat Woodell (born Patricia Joy Woodell on July 12, 1944) was an American actress known for The Roommates (1973), Petticoat Junction (1963) and The Big Doll House (1971). She retired from acting at age 29 and died on September 29, 2015 in Fallbrook, California, USA.

Don Washbrook

Don Washbrook was born on March 15, 1941 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for Petticoat Junction (1963), Playhouse 90 (1956) and The DuPont Show of the Month (1957). He died on May 15, 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Susan Walther

Susan Walther was born on July 23, 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA as Susan Pamela Walther. She is an actress, known for "Petticoat Junction (1963)" and "The Beverly Hillbillies (1962)".

Lynette Winter

Lynette Winter was born on June 17, 1946 in the USA. She is an actress, known for Gidget (1965), Petticoat Junction (1963) and Highway Patrol (1955).

Frank Cady

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

Frank Cady (September 8, 1915 – June 8, 2012) was an American actor. His most famous role was general-store owner Sam Drucker, one of the less-nutty residents of Hooterville in both Green Acres (1965) and Petticoat Junction (1963). He had a history as a film, stage, and television actor long before those shows, and also appeared on some radio programs including Gunsmoke. In the 1950s, Cady played Doc Williams in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), along with numerous supporting parts in movies and also appeared in television commercials for (among other products) Shasta Grape Soda. Cady has been most prolific in television and was the only actor to play a recurring character on three TV sitcoms at the same time, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Green Acres (1965), and Petticoat Junction (1963). Usually cast as a gregarious small-town businessman, druggist, store clerk or other type of all-around Midwestern-type good guy, Cady was actually a California native, born in Susanville in 1915. The acting bug bit him when he sang in an elementary school play, and after graduating from Stanford University he headed to London, England, to train in the theater. When World War II broke out he was already in Europe, so he enlisted in the Army Air Force and spent the next several years in postings all over the continent. After his discharge he returned to the US and headed for Hollywood. An agent saw him in a local play, signed him, and he was on his way. One of his earlier--and more atypical--roles was as a seedy underworld character pulled in for questioning in a cop's murder in the noir classic He Walked by Night (1948), and he played a succession of hotel clerks, bureaucrats, henpecked husbands and the like for the next 40+ years. He did much television work from the mid-'50s onward. Cady resided in Wilsonville, Oregon and at the time of his death had two children, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Ruth Thom

Ruth Thom was born on April 15, 1914 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Body Heat (1981), Petticoat Junction (1963) and The Andy Griffith Show (1960). She was previously married to C.J. Thom. She died on December 7, 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

June Lockhart

Cast · Known for Lassie, Petticoat Junction

June Lockhart (June 25, 1925 – October 23, 2025) was an American actress, beginning a film career in the 1930s and 1940s in films such as A Christmas Carol and Meet Me in St. Louis. She appeared primarily in 1950s and 1960s television and with performances on stage and in film. On two television series, Lassie and Lost in Space, she played mother roles. Lockhart also portrayed Dr. Janet Craig on the CBS television sitcom Petticoat Junction (1968–70). She was a two-time Emmy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner. With a career spanning nearly 90 years, Lockhart was one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. In 1951, Lockhart married John F. Maloney. They had two daughters, Anne Kathleen and June Elizabeth. The couple divorced in 1959. She married architect John Lindsay that same year, but they divorced in October 1970 and she never remarried. A Roman Catholic, Lockhart and her daughter Anne and actress Kay Lenz met Pope John Paul II in 1985. Lockhart had a lifelong fascination with American presidential candidates and the media's coverage of them. Her friend reporter Merriman Smith arranged for her to travel with both major-party candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson during the 1956 presidential election and again with both campaigns in the 1960 election. Between 1957 and 2004, Lockhart attended many presidential briefings. Although a child of the Greatest Generation, Lockhart embraced rock music and listened to emerging rock bands. In an interview, her Lost in Space co-star Bill Mumy stated that she took Angela Cartwright and him to the Whisky a Go Go nightclub in Hollywood "to hang out with The Allman Brothers Band". Appearing on The Virginia Graham Show in 1970 with Art Metrano and LGBT cleric Troy Perry, Lockhart confronted Graham about her moralizing tone toward gay people. Lockhart turned 100 on June 25, 2025. She died of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, California, on October 23, 2025. CLR [biography, excerpted, from Wikipedia]

Hank Patterson

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

Hank Patterson (born Elmer Calvin Patterson; October 9, 1888 – August 23, 1975) was an American actor and musician. He is known foremost for playing two recurring characters on three television series: the stableman Hank Miller on Gunsmoke and farmer Fred Ziffel on both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Patterson found plenty of movie work, mainly playing cantankerous types as well as blacksmiths, hotel clerks, farmers, shopkeepers and other townsmen, usually bit roles and character parts in Republic Pictures westerns, and then in popular juvenile TV westerns such as The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Kit Carson, The Lone Ranger, and Annie Oakley. Patterson played recurring or different roles in adult/family TV westerns, including the role of "Hank Miller" in 33 episodes of Gunsmoke from 1962 through 1972, on Have Gun-Will Travel (eleven episodes), Death Valley Days (nine episodes), Tales of Wells Fargo (seven episodes), Maverick (four episodes), Cheyenne (four episodes), Wagon Train (three episodes), Daniel Boone (three episodes), The Virginian (two episodes), The Rifleman, Bonanza, and in episodes of Lawman, Bat Masterson, The Restless Gun, and many others. He made additional TV appearances, including three episodes of The Twilight Zone as well as Perry Mason, Burke's Law, The Untouchables, Judd for the Defense, My Three Sons, and in later years The Mod Squad and Love, American Style.Highway Patrol. In 1963 Patterson first appeared in what would become a recurring role as farmer Fred Ziffel on the popular CBS rural comedy Petticoat Junction. In 1965 CBS debuted another rural comedy, Green Acres. Both series were set in the mythical farming community of Hooterville, with characters from Petticoat Junction often also appearing in Green Acres, including Patterson's Fred Ziffel character. It was on the popular, irreverent Green Acres that Patterson earned his greatest fame. In 1965 and 1966—two of the years in which the two series ran concurrently—Patterson frequently appeared in both shows in the same week on primetime. The association of Patterson's character with the popular character Arnold, the pet pig whom Fred and his wife Doris treated as a son, ensured Patterson a place in TV history. Arnold attended school, watched TV and was a talented artist, piano player, and actor. He even "talked" (snorted, grunted and squealed) in a language that everyone in Hooterville seemed to understand except Oliver Wendell Douglas (Green Acres co-star Eddie Albert). According to westernclippings.com "Characters and Heavies" by Boyd Magers, "Ironically, by the time Patterson was doing 'Green Acres' he was in his late 70s and almost completely deaf, but the producers loved his portrayal so much they worked around his hearing impairment by having the dialogue coach lying on the floor out-of-shot tapping Hank's leg with a yardstick as a cue to speak his line."

John L. Greene

Writer · Known for Bewitched

John L. Greene (November 10, 1912 – October 4, 1995) was an American screenwriter. He was the creator of the American science fiction sitcom My Favorite Martian. Greene started his career in the 1930s writing for radio programs. He started writing for television in 1951 on the short film Tinhorn Troubadors. His television credits include The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Our Miss Brooks, Bewitched, Petticoat Junction, The Real McCoys, The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres and I Dream of Jeannie. He retired in 1976, last writing credits being for 2 episodes of Chico and the Man. Greene died in October 1995 of natural causes in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 82. Description above from the Wikipedia article XXX, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Nora Denney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nora Denney (September 3, 1927 – November 20, 2005), also known and credited as Dodo Denney, was an American stage, television, and film actress. Her show business career began in Kansas City when she was hired by the local television station Channel 5 (KCMO TV) to play Marilyn the Witch, an onscreen host for horror movies. She performed in many television series, including Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, Hart to Hart, Get Smart, Room 222 and That Girl, and her film credits included Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), I Walk the Line (1970), Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971), I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975), American Hot Wax (1978) and Truman (1995). She made her final film appearance in 1999, in Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil. Perhaps her most notable film role was as Mrs. Teevee in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), starring Gene Wilder and Jack Albertson.

Jimmy Hawkins

James F. Hawkins is an American former actor, producer and writer. He is best-known for his TV roles in shows like Annie Oakley, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It to Beaver, Petticoat Junction, and The Donna Reed Show; and as Tommy Bailey, son of George Bailey in the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.

Jeannine Riley

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jeannine Riley Born Jeannine Brooke Riley October 1, 1940 (age 77) Madera, California, U.S. Occupation Actress Years active 1962–1991 She appeared in guest roles on numerous television series (Route 66, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West) and a few feature films such as The Big Mouth (1967), Fever Heat (1968), The Comic (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973). Also made a guest appearance in an episode of The Virginian. She may be best-known for her role as Billie Jo Bradley on the first two seasons of the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction (1963–1965). Riley left the series in 1965 to pursue movies, and she was replaced by Gunilla Hutton for season three and by Meredith MacRae from seasons four to seven. She also had a regular cast member role on the comedy variety series Hee Haw (1969-71). She played Lulu McQueen (a take-off on Ginger Grant, played by Tina Louise, from Gilligan's Island)

Lori Saunders

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lori Saunders (born Linda Marie Hines on October 4, 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American film and television actress, probably best known for her role as Bobbie Jo Bradley in the television series Petticoat Junction (1965–1970), appearing in 147 episodes. She also appeared as Betty Gordon, one of Mr. Drysdale's secretaries in the last season of The Beverly Hillbillies. She appeared in numerous small roles in film and television from her debut in 1960 until her retirement from acting in 1980. In addition to Petticoat Junction, she had a recurring role in Dusty's Trail, a mid-1970s comedy television series starring Bob Denver. She appeared in the cult horror film Blood Bath (1966), credited as Linda Saunders. Because there was another "Linda" [Kaye (Henning)] credited on Petticoat Junction, Saunders officially changed her first name to "Lori" in the fall of 1965. Other films include: A Day at the White House (1972), Captive (1980), and Mara of the Wilderness (1965) with Adam West. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lori Saunders, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Smiley Burnette

Cast · Known for Petticoat Junction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lester Alvin Burnett (March 18, 1911 – February 16, 1967), better known as Smiley Burnette, was a popular American country music performer and a comedic actor in Western films and on radio and TV, playing sidekick to Gene Autry and other B-movie cowboys. He was also a prolific singer-songwriter who could play as many as 100 musical instruments, some simultaneously. His career, beginning in 1934, spanned four decades, including a regular role on CBS-TV's Petticoat Junction in the 1960s. Description above from the Wikipedia article Smiley Burnette, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Paul De Rolf

Paul De Rolf was an American actor, choreographer, and dancer. In addition to his acting credits, De Rolf choreographed Steven Spielberg's 1941 and The Karate Kid Part II, as well as the television series Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. De Rolf began his career as a child actor.

Ralph Levy

Ralph Levy (December 18, 1920 – October 15, 2001) was an American producer, film and television director. Ralph Levy was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He directed episodes of several television shows, including I Love Lucy, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Trapper John, M.D. and Hawaii Five-O. He also served as producer/director of The Ed Wynn Show, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and The Jack Benny Program. Levy's film directorial career includes Do Not Disturb starring Doris Day, and Bedtime Story starring David Niven, Shirley Jones and Marlon Brando. Levy was the director of General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein, a TV special broadcast on March 28, 1954, on all four TV networks in the US at the time. Levy won the 1960 Emmy Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy for The Jack Benny Program.