Irene Ryan's Beverly Hillbillies Role Highlights Hollywood's Changing Attitude On Aging

For nearly a decade, viewers tuned in weekly to laugh along with "The Beverly Hillbillies." The series followed the Clampetts, a newly rich family from the Ozark backwoods who give their lives a glow-up in California's ritziest neighborhood, with predictably amusing results. Adding sass to the upper class was Irene Ryan as Daisy "Granny" Moses, the moonshine-making matriarch who never completely took to the highfalutin lifestyle. On the show, Granny was in her 80s, but true fans of "The Beverly Hillbillies" know Ryan was only 59 years old when she got the part. In fact, the actress had to convince the casting director she was more physically capable to handling the shooting schedule than someone much older.

It was the only option Ryan had at her age. For decades, Hollywood relegated "older" actresses — as in over 35 — to playing matrons, spinsters, quirky neighbors, and other character roles. One such famous example of female ageism came in the form of 1967's "The Graduate," in which Anne Bancroft played a mother who seduces her daughter's boyfriend (Dustin Hoffman). Bancroft was just 36 at the time, and Hoffman was 30. Another classic, "All About Eve," starred Bette Davis as a famous 40-year-old actress supposedly past her prime, while the younger wannabe (Anne Baxter) schemes to take over her career. 

Today, Ryan would've had more choices than playing dowdy grandmas nearly twice her age. In recent years, the media industry has awakened to the knowledge that women in midlife and beyond are both powerful and sexy, and should be portrayed as such. Bancroft's bored housewife bears no resemblance to Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly in "The Devil Wears Prada," for instance. The editor-in-chief of Runway is powerful, formidable, impeccably stylish — and in her 50s.And she's not the only one.

The women of old Hollywood would be proud (and perhaps a bit jealous) to see how times have changed since their names topped the marquee. Today, actresses over 40 who would've been typecast as old maids, anxious mothers, or wisdom-spouting grandmas are now playing action heroes, activists, and just plain passionate women. Case in point: Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock are still total bombshells decades after their starring turns in "Practical Magic."  In the 2026 sequel, "Practical Magic 2," Bullock, at 62, has a love-interest plot line that would never have been included in a film 50 years ago, except perhaps as comic relief. As for Kidman? Consider this: At 59, she's as old as Irene Ryan was when she starred in "The Beverly Hillbillies." But looking at the picture above, Kidman looks more like Elly May Clampett, the show's eye-candy daughter.

Yet, there's still a long way to go before we can say ageism is a thing of the past. A 2025 report by Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, found that 68% percent of major female characters on TV are in their 20s and 30s, while 14% are in their 40s. Twice as many male roles as female were in their 60s. 

As Lauzen explained to Forbes, "Male characters tend to be valued for what they do, what they accomplish. Female characters tend to be valued for how they look and who they're attached to." While women over 40 have more choice in the roles they play, they're still fighting to have a voice onscreen in the first place. Granny Clampett would no doubt have a choice word or two to say about that.