Paul Henning
Musician · 1911–2005 · Independence, Missouri
Best known for
Songwriter
Paul Henning was a Missouri-born television writer and producer who created The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–71) and Petticoat Junction (1963–70) and executive-produced Green Acres (1965–71) — the trio of rural sitcoms that anchored CBS’s primetime schedule through the 1960s. He also wrote both the words and music to “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the banjo theme Flatt & Scruggs took to No. 1 country and No. 44 pop in 1962.
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- Born Paul William Henning on September 16, 1911, in Independence, Missouri.
- Worked behind a drugstore counter as a teenager and met a young Harry S. Truman, who urged him to study law.
- Attended the Kansas City School of Law but pursued a career singing on the radio.
- Moved into writing for network radio comedies including Fibber McGee and Molly and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
- Wrote for early television sitcoms including The Dennis Day Show, The Real McCoys, and The Andy Griffith Show.
- Created The Beverly Hillbillies for CBS in 1962, drawing on his own Ozark camping trips near Branson, Missouri.
- Wrote the words and music to the show’s theme “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”; Flatt & Scruggs’s 1962 Columbia recording reached No. 1 country and No. 44 pop.
- Created and executive-produced Petticoat Junction (1963); served as executive producer on Green Acres (1965), which was created by Jay Sommers.
- Cast his daughter Linda Kaye Henning as Betty Jo on Petticoat Junction; she also partially inspired Elly May Clampett.
- Died March 25, 2005, in Burbank, California, at age 93.
