whatever became of...

[joan davis fan]

Yesterday on TV Land during Beaver they said the actor who played Richard ended up being a successful producer in his adult life.

Had me wondering what ever happened to the kids on the show
(besides the Beav, Wally, Lumpy, and Eddie )? Like Larry, Julie, Gilbert, Benji, heck even Miss Landers.

Any of them still living and what are they doing now? I know Miss Rayburn passed on several years ago as well as Lumpy's dad- Richard Deacon. he died back in 1984.

[lukes42]

The actor who played Miss Landers (Sue Randall) passed away in October of 1984. She was a heavy smoker for many years, and it finally caught up with her as she died of lung cancer.

As far as I know, all of the child actors from the show are still living. Larry (Rusty Stevens) left the show after the 3rd season of Leave It To Beaver, and his family moved to the east coast. Larry became an insurance salesman in New Jersey, but he lives a private life. Even his wife was unaware of the fact that he starred in LITB. The FBI actually had to track Rusty down for him to appear in the 1983 reunion movie.

Cheryl Holdridge who played Julie Foster didn't do a lot of roles after Leave It To Beaver ended, but she did do a few. She had guest appearances in "My Three Sons", "Bewitched", "Dick Van Dyke Show", and her most recent movie appearance was in 2000, when she was a part of the Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas movie.

The actor who played Gilbert Bates (Stephen Talbot) went on to become a famous documentary film maker. In 1980, he won a Peabody award for the film "Broken Arrow." Stephen has nothing to do with the show Leave It To Beaver. Everytime he has been asked to reprise his role in LITB reunion movies, he has turned them down. He doesn't even acknowledge his appearing in the show.

As for Benji, he only appeared in a few episodes, and its hard to find any recent information on him. I am sure he is still alive, though. Hope all this helps! :)

[17Mar59]

I remember they once did an episode of the William Shatner
reality show Emergency 911 that had Ken "Eddie Haskell"
Osmond on it since it involved his work as a police officer.

Jerry Mathers as his own website and you can read up about
him,including about the source of the infamous rumor that he
was killed in Vietnam(which he wasn't and aren't we all glad!:))

Tony Dow did some directing on Babylon 5 and also worked on
the Doctor Who tv movie for FOX.

[Kristina]

Originally posted by lukes42
The actor who played Miss Landers (Sue Randall) passed away in October of 1984. She was a heavy smoker for many years, and it finally caught up with her as she died of lung cancer.

I didn't know that, how sad!! :(

[tdr]

< Had me wondering what ever happened to the kids on the show? .... Like Larry, Julie, Gilbert, Benji >

This article by Stephen Talbot may interest you:

http://www.salon.com/aug97/mothers/beaver970822.html

[DarleneIllyria]

He's made a name out of himself and he doesn't want to back track. Look at Nancy Mckeon for another example. She's made a name out of Nancy McKeon instead of just being Jo from FOL. I fully understand Stephen after I read the article. I congratulate him for breaking out of the typecasting box.

The one thing I'm wondering about now is something Stephen said in the article. He was typecast for awhile, while Beaver remains typecast. I'm pretty sure Ken has been typecast as Eddie, but what about Tony Dow? It sounds like from Stephen's article that Tony didn't go through the period of being typecast as Wally Cleaver. I wonder how he got by that?