How Barry Livingston Survived “My Three Sons” Child Stardom as TV's First Nerd

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https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...162650858.html

Barry's brother Stanley also starred on the series

Victoria Edel
Thu, October 9, 2025 at 9:26 AM PDT

• Barry Livingston opened up about his time as a child star on My Three Sons and what it was like to play one of the first "nerds" on TV
  
• Livingston played Ernie, the friend and later adopted brother of Chip, who was played by his real-lie brother Stanley
  
• Livingston said his parents’ influence was essential to helping him avoid the “child star curse”

Barry Livingston was cut from his first acting job because of his glasses, but they ended up being his trademark as a child star on My Three Sons.

Barry, 71, appeared on the Oct. 6 episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast with Steve Kmetko to talk about his long career and how he transitioned from 1960s child star into a long career as a working actor.

Barry actually ended up in acting because his older brother Stanley Livingston did it first. Stanley auditioned for 1958’s Rally Round the Flag, Boys! to play one of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s sons and Barry accompanied him. After the producers decided to hire Stanley, they said to their mom, “Who's that?” They cast him as another son.

But then one day on set, he had “a little problem” and his eyes “started to cross.”

He remembered, “They took me to a hospital they you know weren't sure if I was having a seizure.” It turned out he needed glasses.

When he came back to set, the producers said, “We've got to fire this kid.” Between his glasses and “buck teeth,” they didn’t think he looked like he was Newman’s son. “I was driven off. I can remember to this day being put in the back of a limousine and being driven off the lot,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow, welcome to Hollywood.’ Easy come, easy go.”

But then Stanley, now, 74, was cast in My Three Sons, which premiered in 1960 and ran until 1972. He played Chip Douglas, one of the three sons of widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray). The older sons were played by Tim Considine as Mike and Don Grady as Robbie.

In season four in 1963, Barry joined the series as Ernie, Chip’s nerdy friend — and he got to keep his glasses. In 1965, when Considine left the show, Steven adopted Ernie, with the show writing that he had been a foster child the whole time.

Barry said, “I think the character of Ernie was a little bit of a groundbreaking character in that he was more of an everyday average, not terribly blue-eyed, blond-haired, Aryan beautiful little boy like the prototype for most television shows of that era. Like my brother Stan was probably a perfect example of that.”

He explained, “I had buck teeth, I had braces, I had glasses, I had a weird haircut. All those things made him a little more relatable, maybe and he's like a prototype nerd. And you know that's served me well over the years.”

Kmetko then asked Barry how he avoided “the child star curse.” He credited his parents, who he called “showbiz savvy.”

“They weren't people connected in any way, but they were well aware of some of the kids that have had struggles,” he said. “. . . There was a lot of child actors that they knew had problems. So, they were always, to a fault, warning me about the hard times to come after the show is over.”

His parents told him about acting, "If you're really going to do this, you’ve got to get really good at it. You can't just rely on the charm and your looks. You’ve got to really study and really become an actor.”

Since people told him he had “talent,” Barry decided to give it his all and studied acting in both Los Angeles and New York. He also honed his craft on the stage and made his Broadway debut in 1975 in The Skin of Our Teeth. He starred as Linus in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown both on stage and in the 1973 TV special.

He’s continued to work in both film and television over the decades. His film credits include 2007’s Zodiac, 2010’s The Social Network and 2012’s Argo. On TV, he’s made appearances in episodes of Mad Men, NCIS, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Bosch, among others.

Barry said working with his brother Stanley on My Three Sons was “a real joy and a pleasure.”

“Don Grady who was played Robbie became my pseudo brother. Tim Considine, who was actually the guy replaced in My Three Sons, was very brotherly to me. So in addition to having my real brother, I had my extra brothers,” he said. Considine died in 2022 at age 81. Grady died in 2012 at 68. Stanley is the only surviving member of the original main cast.