Harriet E. MacGibbon

Harriet MacGibbon enjoyed not one but two successful careers; she spent her 20s touring the country in plays like "You Can't Take It With You," and she studied harp with the Boston Symphony Orchestra before becoming a steady supporting film and television actor. MacGibbon abandoned her plans to attend Vassar College in order to pursue her theatrical interests, and she appeared in regional productions in Kentucky, Ohio, and California, as well as in numerous Broadway plays. Though she made her TV debut in 1951, it wasn't until the '60s that she committed herself to an off-stage acting career. Many of her roles found her playing a haughty society woman or snooty next-door neighbor; in "The Majority of One," she played the nosy friend of a cynical Brooklyn widow, and was cast as a disapproving parent in "Son of Flubber," the sequel to Disney's goofy family comedy "The Absent-Minded Professor." MacGibbon worked steadily in small roles on popular shows like the road trip series "Route 66" and played stern high school teacher Miss Finch in the TV adaptation of the comic strip "Archie." Her most memorable role came as the status-obsessed Mrs. Margaret Drysdale on "The Beverly Hillbillies"; a Boston Brahmin by blood, Mrs. Drysdale frequently clashed with her next-door neighbors, the newly rich Clampetts, and saved her most heated remarks for the spry, gun-toting Granny (Daisy May Moses).