Anyone see the feature on Tony Dow on CBS Sunday Morning? I felt it was really interesting to see clips from Leave it to Beaver as well as his career as a sculptor. His wife of 41 years, Lauren is also an artist. They even showed some Beaver memorabilia, including old scripts.

Anyone see the feature on Tony Dow on CBS Sunday Morning? I felt it was really interesting to see clips from Leave it to Beaver as well as his career as a sculptor. His wife of 41 years, Lauren is also an artist. They even showed some Beaver memorabilia, including old scripts.

I watched it. He looked really good - he didn't look 76. He had pneumonia awhile back and was in the hospital so I'm glad he is doing fine. He seems like a really nice person who has had his struggles with depression.

at 18:13 on the video:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-week-on-sunday-morning-january-16-2022/

Very interesting. I really wish he had the time or could take the time to scan those scripts onto an internet site.

That would be cool.

One of my brothers used to live in Santa Monica. He told me that he was in a restaurant there with his German girlfriend. So, Tony Dow walks in with several people and most of the other diners took immediate notice of Mr. Dow.

My brother’s German girlfriend had no idea who Tony Dow was. After my brother explained that Tony Dow was a big star on LITB during the late 1950s and early 1960s, she told him that LITB was not aired on West German television.

I wonder what June, Ward and the boys would sound like in German? I remember once when Johnny Carson played a scene from “Bonanza” on “The Tonight Show” that had been aired in Japan. To hear Big Hoss Cartwright sound like Toshiro Mifune was very funny! I wonder if Eddie Haskell would sound even more unctuous in Japanese?

I'll bet it was refreshing to Mr. Dow to have that person's German girlfriend react to him as HIMSELF and not due to having been Wally a teen idol.

Still, I saw the interview and it's great that he seems to have made his peace with all the angst of having been Wally AND that he recognizes how the show has made so many people happy for several generations and is now proud to have been part of it. Also, it's good to see that he's found his own niche, happily married, and appears healthy & years younger than 76!

unctuous

unctuous
ŭngk′choo͞-əs
adjective
Excessively ingratiating or insincerely earnest.
Containing or composed of oil or fat.
Having the quality or characteristics of oil or ointment; slippery.

Eddie Haskell = Unctuous

Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford = Fatuous and Ravenous

Gilbert Bates = Duplicitous and Instigator

Fred Rutherford = Vainglorious and Officious

Marlene Holmes = Nymphomaniacal

Larry Mondello = Voracious, also Gluttonous

Andy Hadlock = Dipsomaniacal

Judy Hensler = Backstabber and Hubristic

Aunt Martha Bronson = Hidebound and Republican

Ward Cleaver = Perspicacious and Convivial

Gus the Fireman = Horse Sense and Pragmatic

Uncle Billy Cleaver = Jocose and Free-Spirited

June Cleaver = Prim and Decorous

Richard Rickover = Braggadocious and Unreliable

Julie Foster = Space Cadet and Capricious

Wally Cleaver = Mensch and Selfless

Mrs. Cornelia Rayburn = Sage and Savoir Faire

Whitey Whitney = Impish and Espiegle

Miss Landers = Pedantic and Chaste

Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver = Callow and Ingenuous

I rewatched the clip.
Is he saying he got depressed because his fame/money/career did not continue?

The video of that interview on YouTube started to actually repeat prior segments of the interview, making it difficult to follow the thing.

I believe it may have also been connected to swimming or diving that did before acting.

Then what’s Andy Hadlock’s excuse?

Don't know about Tony Dow. But don't a lot of "stereotyped" actors fall on hard times when their acting careers are pretty much over after a series run. Though, a lot of comeback stories by the resilient if not in acting, in other fields.

Don't know about Tony Dow. But don't a lot of "stereotyped" actors fall on hard times when their acting careers are pretty much over after a series run.

That is what I am trying to get at. Why interview him if all you are going to say in the end is that he wished to god his acting career and all that goes with it continued in a meaningful way.

That is one big no-duh and the interview did not need to be done. :horse:

Then what’s Andy Hadlock’s excuse?

Are you talking about Wendell Holmes?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050032/characters/nm0392092

That is what I am trying to get at. Why interview him if all you are going to say in the end is that he wished to god his acting career and all that goes with it continued in a meaningful way.

That is one big no-duh and the interview did not need to be done. :horse:

That's a good point. It's almost like the end was missing.

I re-watched it...this link worked fine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSYhTvXnbE

He says from ages 20 to 40 nothing was happening for him (you've got to make things happen!). That would be from around 1965 to 1985. And he didn't like being forever associated with the Wally character. Yet later he changed his mind.

Still the Beaver/The New Leave it to Beaver ran from 1983 thru the rest of the 80s. I guess we could assume he came to grips with Wally around 1983 and decided to take the role.

He's been doing the sculpting for 20 years, as maybe continuing therapy (???) I don't know, the whole interview is really confusing. It fits into the mold of all the other actors, grown child and adult, who complain of not being able to shake a typecast role. I think he was on that A&E roundtable pity party over 20 years ago, on that subject, but I don't recall him saying much.

All in all, I agree with "Tanker"--pretty pointless.

^^^
Its like dragging him through the mud over and over again.

I just got done binging on Beaver (no you dirty mind). When I am done, I feel like the Cleavers are kind of part of my life. I do not want to hear the grown-up "Wally" saying the same negative thing over and over again.

I blame the interviewer(s), not Tony.

True, and it could have also been edited to be the way they wanted it, which seemed to be, to concentrate on the mental health angle.

I feel like the Cleavers are kind of part of my life.

As wonderful entertainment... right?

Jerry Mathers & Tony Dow were not only stereotyped. But, their acting skills became atrocious when they couldn't rely on cuteness anymore.

Jerry Mathers & Tony Dow were not only stereotyped. But, their acting skills became atrocious when they couldn't rely on cuteness anymore.

They remind me of the Walton kids. There wasn't an actor in the bunch, but they managed to make a show worth watching for years. Once it was over, none of them did much.

Even Richard Thomas (who can act somewhat), did not have a "star" career.

It sounds like Jerry had a better grip on reality or he was simply done with acting so no more acting calls did not bother him where Tony wanted more acting gigs.