For Donna Douglas, it sounds as though art really did reflect life in a way.
The actress died Thursday at the age of 81 at her home in Louisiana and, while she was easily most famous for playing Elly May Clampett, the beautiful fish-out-of-water daughter of an accidental oilman on The Beverly Hillbillies, Douglas enjoyed a fruitful career and in later years reflected on having had the type of life that she never would have dared to dream of having.
Still vivacious and famously platinum-blond, Douglas sat down with E! News back in 2000 and talked about her own small-town roots, none of which made her think she'd one day be a Hollywood star.
"I've had unbelievable things happen in my life," Douglas told us. "When you look back, from a poor little country girl with no background, no understanding, certainly no dreams or desires of being an actress, afraid to leave home—now I've been to so many, many parts of the worlds."
A beauty queen from Pride, La., she was already divorced and the mother of a son when she moved to New York to pursue acting not long after finishing high school. She had a number of small TV roles, her most memorable coming about two years before she was cast as Elly May,in theTwilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder." Douglas played a woman who was undergoing surgery to become more "normal"-looking and you don't understand why she isn't happy with the way she looks until it's revealed that everyone else looks...not so hot.
"I never had desire or ambition, you know, to be on stage, to be in movies or anything like that," Douglas told us in 2000. "Probably the only thing I ever dreamed of, as to goals or dreams, was to be a really good softball pitcher and to have a good marriage. That was about all."
Douglas was twice-divorced, and she said how she ultimately would advise others not to worry about having all the answers.
"I always tell people, ‘You don't always have to have it all together. You don't have to have everything perfect in your life or think you have to know it all,'" she mused. "If you try to do the best and be the best that you can be, right where you are, starting from where you are, not where you'd like to be...So many times people try to imitate other people or try to be like other people, or all those kind of things, but their greatest joy will come from being who they are, 'cause that's where their gifts and talents are."
RIP, Donna Douglas. Watch the clips for more words of wisdom from the veteran actress, who never forgot where she came from.