Posted on 07/28/2022 9:54:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
Tony Dow, the actor who personified the role of America’s big brother as the elder sibling Wally Cleaver on the TV classic sitcom Leave It to Beaver, died today. He was 77, and had been battling cancer.
His death comes a day after his passing was mistakenly reported by his management team and his wife.
Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery
A statement on his Facebook page now reads:
We have received confirmation from Christopher, Tony’s son, that Tony passed away earlier this morning, with his loving family at his side to see him through this journey. We know that the world is collectively saddened by the loss of this incredible man. He gave so much to us all and was loved by so many. One fan said it best—”It is rare when there is a person who is so universally loved like Tony.”
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
I went to school with other kids that were just as poor, if not worse, so it wasn’t so bad, but there were well off kids who always had new clothes, new shoes, etc. so we knew there as a better life for some who would just not accept their present position as normal.
It was a time before Mississippi had compulsive education, so I knew some kids that had never seen the inside of a school house, so were doomed to poverty for the rest of their lives..................
leave it to beaver kinda lives up to its name...
Eddie Haskell and Lumpy were always, “Giving the business” to Beaver and Wally. I always enjoyed hearing that phrase on the show.
I actually liked the Eddie Haskell character.................
Yep.............. 😢
Yes there was some 50s stylistic stuff that made some of “leave It To Beaver” unrealistic.
Like the mom always dressed in the house - no matter what she was doing - as if she was about to go out shopping in her favorite stores. She never once wore what my mom called a “house dress” and her hair always looked like she did not need to go to the beauty parlor.
Beaver over the years never managed to learn to not follow his dumbest friends, into trouble. Then again they made Beaver look “better” than those friends, but still created situations Beaver had to get out of or get punished for.
Beaver and Wally made good brothers in my estimation, and in an interview a few years back Jerry Mthews and Tony Dow said their friendship became a lot like real brothers over the years, brothers who were also good friends.
Often by the end of an episdoe there was a good lesson or lessons for the boys or the family and it - the resolution of an issue - often promoted good values as well.
Tony Dpw played a good “corrective” role to the seeming alwys immature Beaver. Today’s TV would do well to have roles like Wally and Beaver and child actors like Tony Dow.
I met Dow at a friend’s party and we never spoke about the show or character. Real nice guy. Of all the people there, Dow was the quietest and most unassuming person at that party.
Yep . Hugh Beaumont got a master’s degree from USC . He was in over 100 movies before LITB , but mostly bit parts that went uncredited .
This back and forth with Wally was like Tanya Roberts from Charlie’s Angels.
I hope when the time comes that the “Beav’s” demise is quick like a skydiving accident or showing up riding a Honda scooter at a motorcycle rally like Sturgis and insulting a guy named ‘Tiny’ about his manhood.... : )
I feel almost as if I’d lost a cousin I’d grown up with. He was of my generation, and I grew up watching the show and then watched its reruns for more than half a century. (Currently two episodes are on here every day.) The character Wally was a nice guy, and from what I could see when Tony Dow appeared in interviews and on some shows about ex-child actors, he was too.
Usually when I regret the passing of an actor or musician, it’s impersonal, and I just appreciate what they have contributed. This time it feels more personal.
Like some of the other persons in this thread I grew up poorer than the Cleavers. Also I was more of a nonconformist. Within my family we were outspoken and not so formally polite, but we were taught the same basic principles of right and wrong that Wally and the Beaver were. Being nice was not considered uncool.
True, the show may have been unrealistic at times when it comes to the goodness of the family, but on the other hand characters such as Eddie and Lumpy weren’t really as bizarre as comic figures on more recent sitcoms have tended to be. A good many things on the show were true to life. In the early episodes, especially, sometimes one of the characters would say a jewel of a line about childhood experiences — the more ordinary ones, not the traumatic ones — and I’d chuckle and think, “That’s a good observation.”
There were some jarring lines (for instance, the boys would say they enjoyed movies in which they “croak” people), put in there, I suppose, to counteract the over-good portrayal of the family — as if to say, see, we’re ordinary kids. What appealed to me, though, was its mostly gentle humor and basically good, benevolent attitude toward the treatment of other people.
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