You asked, I listened. Well, actually, I asked, and you responded.
Last week, I wrote about some behind-the-scenes feuds from popular TV shows, and many of you seemed to enjoy a little gossip to break up all the news, politics, and crazy going on in the world right now. Since the weekend is here, it seemed like as perfect a time as any to go for round two.
The Beverly Hillbillies
The four main cast members of The Beverly Hillbillies supposedly got along for the most part. I've always heard that Max Baer Jr., who played Jethro Bodine, could cause some friction on the set, but to hear him tell it, there was nothing out of the ordinary — Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett), Donna Douglas (Elly May Clampett), Irene Ryan (Granny), and Baer acted like a family on screen and off, which meant they were extremely close and protective of each other, but they also fought and bickered.
"That's normal living. You may like or even love somebody, but from time to time, you're gonna get pissed off at them and tell them to get lost," he said. "I mean I yelled at Irene and she yelled at me, I'd get pissed at Donna and she would cry or something like that. Buddy would get angry with me and just turn his back on me, or I'd say, 'G**d****t, Buddy, what's the matter?'"
But when it came to Ebsen's relationship with Nancy Kulp, who played Jane Hathaway, things weren't quite as friendly. The two were polar opposites politically: Ebsen was a staunch Republican, and Kulp was a Democrat. This often led to arguments on the set, and even when the show ended in 1971, it didn't end there.
In 1984, Kulp ran as a Democrat to represent Pennsylvania's 9th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. When Ebsen caught wind of this, he repeatedly called her opponent, Republican Bud Shuster, and asked if he could record a radio commercial for him. In it, he called her "too liberal," and Kulp eventually lost the race.
In the aftermath, she admitted that they'd never gotten along on the set and that "He's not the kindly old Jed Clampett that you saw on the show." She also said he had no business campaigning against her. Just before Kulp died from cancer, the two of them reportedly made up after their decades-old feud.
Happy Days
It would probably be quicker for me to explain who did like each other behind the scenes of the Happy Days... let's just say things weren't always so "happy" in 1950s Milwaukee.
First up, Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, aka Howard and Marion Cunningham, didn't exactly hit it off at first. As a matter of fact, it took a few years before they actually started getting along. Ross sat down for an interview with Megyn Kelly in 2018, and she said that she felt like Bosley had someone else in mind for the role of his wife. But the two eventually "worked through" their differences and even became close friends later on.
Many of the other on-set disputes seemed to center on the fact that Henry Winkler, who played Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, became the show's breakout star, which didn't always sit well with the other actors, including Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham. The fact that fans loved Fonzie reportedly created a bit of friction between the two stars, though Howard blames the studio and network executives. Howard said that when the show began, he was meant to be the star, but as Winkler's fame grew, the powers that be began treating him disrespectfully.
Despite what sounds like a bit of jealousy on Howard's part, the two actors managed to overcome it and have been close friends for decades. Anson Williams, who played Potsie, and Don Most, who played Ralph Malph, were also reportedly jealous of Winkler's rise to stardom, but they managed to get past it as well and are still close with both Howard and Winkler.
Winkler and Scott Baio, who played Fonzie's younger cousin, Chachi, were like father and son when they filmed the show, according to Winkler. Their "feud" actually came decades later — which probably doesn't technically count, but I thought I'd mention it anyway — and once again, politics was at the center of it. Baio is a Republican and a big Donald Trump supporter, while Winkler is a Democrat.
Back in 2021, Baio mocked some Democrat lawmakers on what was Twitter at the time, which led to the two men getting into a pretty heated social media debate. But they both admitted that even though they have big political differences, they're still like "family" and have agreed to disagree.
While Winkler was able to make good with his male co-stars, there was one woman who didn't get off so lucky. Remember Pinky Tuscadero, Fonzie's girlfriend, played by Roz Kelly? It may seem like she was on the show much longer than she was, and initially, that was the plan, but Kelly only lasted for three episodes. As it turns out, she and the rest of the cast didn't get along. She and Winkler could barely stand each other, and the story goes that producers were afraid they'd lose their beloved Fonzie if they kept her on.
Kelly has found herself in some legal trouble over the years, including serving 120 days in jail in 2000 for hitting a man with her cane. At one point, she was also ordered to undergo psychiatric counseling, so the idea that she didn't get along with anyone on the set isn't hard to imagine.
I'm going to stop there for today, but I have plenty more where this came from, and maybe next week, I'll dive into a few others.
