I love the episodes with Mrs Drysdale. Harriet MacGibbon played the part to perfection. Those type of character actresses don't seem to be around much these days.

Absolutely!!! She was a wonderful character on the show and yes actresses like that are not around in Hollywood any more, mores the pity.
I always laugh so much at the episodes with Harriet in them.
"That Old Black Magic" I think is my favourite of the Mrs. Drysdale episodes

does anyone know if she's still around? I know Raymoond Bailey is dead.

She passed away in 1987. She was in her 80s at that point.

I'm sorry to hear that they both have passed away. Harriet did play her to perfection. I loved when Mrs. Drysdale would hold her doggie and was so mean to Granny and the others. She was a hilarious woman. I loved her........ & Mr. Drysdale as her husband........... What can I say. They were funny together.

How and when was she written out of the series?

The character of Mrs. Drysdale did not appear in every episode. Her character sometimes was said to be in Boston visting Sonny. She appeared more in the earlier ones however and made scattered appearances in the later ones. But she was always played to the hilt by the same actress, Harriet MacGibbon, through the 9 or so years Beverly Hillbillies was on. She was never written out.

Actually, the Mrs. Drysdale character last appeared in 1969, two years before the series ended in prime-time. I don't know why she left that year or if she was written out. I believe MacGibbon's husband in real-life died in 1969 (she was married to a doctor and actually lived in Beverly Hills!) Perhaps his death caused her to retire?? In the 1970s, she moved to Chicago to be near her son, but in the 1980s returned to Beverly Hills where she died in 1987 at the age of 82.

I think they should have written her out somehow. They could have had her character divorce her husband or something. But they didn't so there really isn't anything we can do about it.

I believe Paul Henning wrote her out (big mistake, Harriet added a lot to the show) in part because he was apparently getting bored with the series and hence sending the Clampetts all over the map, back to the Hills, to London, to New York and then trying to make new storylines (the ghastly Frogman episodes), giving Elly a new beau (I preferred Dash Riprock thank you!!), bringing on Shorty and Elvia for a long spell (one of the few positive changes, Elvia Allman was terrific but still I missed Harriet's superb Margaret Drysdale, one of the greatest comic performances of a haughty snob.

Mrs Drysdale was one of my favorite characters on the show. Granny and her were hilarious together. She was the perfect snob. The show lost something when she was no longer on.

My favorite episode with her was when she was in the hospital and she kept sliding out the window on her bed. That was hilarious!

I loved when Milburn had Granny believe that Mrs. Drysdale was running for Possum Queen. That is one of the funniest episodes.

Great character. She should have appeared more often.