Max Baer Jr

 

ollowing the cancellation of "The Beverly Hillbillies" in 1971, Max (Jethro) Baer Jr. made numerous guest appearances on television, but he found his TV acting career hampered by typecasting. He concentrated on feature motion pictures, especially behind the camera, writing, producing, and directing. Baer wrote (on the back of scripts during breaks in filming "Hillbillies") and produced the drama "Macon County Line" (1974), in which he played Deputy Reed Morgan (below), which became the highest-grossing movie per dollar invested at the time. Made for $110,000, it earned almost $25 million at the box office, a record that lasted until "The Blair Witch Project" surpassed it in 1999.

While the poster advertising the film included the tagline "It shouldn't have happened. It couldn't have happened. But it did," and the title card states that it is a true story (and several reviewers have stated the same), director Richard Compton and Baer have said that they wrote the original story without any basis in historic events.

Baer is credited with being one of the first to use the title of a popular song as the title and plot anchor of a film, acquiring the rights to Bobbie Gentry's hit song and producing the 1976 film "Ode to Billy Joe," which he also directed.

Happy Birthday, Max Baer Jr.!