Jane Hathaway

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Hathaway is a fictional character in the 1960's television comedy, The Beverly Hillbillies, as well as it's 1993 movie remake. In the television show, she was played by actress Nancy Kulp and in the movie, she was played by actress Lily Tomlin.

[edit] Drysdale's conscience

Jane is the highly efficient and very able assistant to Milburn Drysdale, the pompous and sometimes greedy president of the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. She is quite helpful to Drysdale's biggest clients, the Clampett family, in getting to know about the mysteries (to them at least) of city living. In fact, Jane was a very knowledgable woman who had the Clampett family's best interests in mind.

At first, she mistook the Clampetts for their servants, but once the situation was straightened out, and she realized who they really were, she became more friendly to them.

She is affectionately called "Miss Jane" by the Clampett family, and she is well respected and considered family, even by Granny, who is the most indignant of the Clampetts when it comes to city living.

She has an unrequited crush on Jethro Bodine, and yet she always perseveres that she will land him. She is always poised and polished, and drives a red convertible, which is helpful, as Drysdale is always using her to either mollify the Clampetts whenever they are upset about something, or doing her best to extricate them from another of Drysdale's schemes which had gone awry.

Working for someone who is very greedy and quite conniving can sometimes get on Jane's nerves, and whenever her boss goes too far (as he often does) she yells, "CHIEF!!!", in exasperation.

However, she is usually the conscience of her boss, and in essence, a needed support for Drysdale although he has made many attempts to get rid of her, so he could connive with impunity. These attempts often met with failure.