Donna Douglas, who played Elly May on 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' dies at age 82

FILE - In this March 4, 2009 file photo, Donna Douglas, who starred in the television series "The Beverly Hillbillies" tours the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. Douglas, who played the buxom tomboy Elly May Clampett on the hit 1960s sitcom has died. Douglas, who was 82, died Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015, in Baton Rouge, where she lived, her niece, Charlene Smith, said. (AP Photo/Bill Haber, File)

NEW YORK - Donna Douglas, who played the buxom tomboy Elly May Clampett on the hit 1960s sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies," has died.

Douglas, who was 82, died Thursday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she lived, her niece, Charlene Smith, said. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, Smith said.

Although Douglas appeared in commercials and TV shows in the 1950s and '60s, she was best known for her role in "The Beverly Hillbillies," the CBS comedy about a backwoods Tennessee family who moved to Beverly Hills after striking it rich from oil on their land.

The series, which ran from 1962 to 1971, also starred the late Buddy Ebsen and Irene Ryan as well as Max Baer Jr., who turns 77 on Sunday.

Douglas had long been out of the entertainment business.