Leave it to Beaver” star Jerry Mathers is most known for his role as the young Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver. Other television appearances include “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “General Electric Theater,” “Lassie,” “My Three Sons,” and “The War at Home.” “This Is My Love,” “The Trouble with Harry,” and the “Shadow on the Window” were some of Mathers’ first appearances on the silver screen.
Jerry Mathers Early Life and Career Beginnings
Mathers was raised in the Los Angeles suburb of the San Fernando Valley in the state of California. He was born in Sioux City, Iowa in 1948. He has three siblings, two of whom are his brothers and one of whom is his sister. As a child model, he made his debut in a department store commercial at the tender age of two. After that, he appeared with comedian Ed Wynn in a PET Milk commercial.
At age four, Mathers featured uncredited in the Western comedy “Son of Paleface” and in a Halloween episode of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” as a trick-or-treating toddler. “This is My Love,” with Linda Darnell and Dan Duryea; “The Seven Little Foos,” with Bob Hope, and Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Trouble With Harry,” in which he played a youngster who discovers a dead body near his home, followed soon after. He also appeared in the crime film “The Shadow on the Window,” in which he played a frightened young kid who witnessed his mother being raped.
Jerry Mathers Leave it to Beaver
A young “Beaver” Cleaver, son of suburban couple June and Ward Cleaver and brother to Wally, won Mathers his breakout role in “Leave it to Beaver” in 1957. After telling the show’s producers that he’d rather be at his Club Scout meeting than the audition, Mathers was cast, according to reports. Over the course of six years, Mathers appeared in all 234 episodes of the show as the title character. He was the first ever kid actor to receive a cut of a television show’s merchandise sales as payment for his work.
In spite of its enduring popularity, “Leave it to Beaver” may be seen in over 80 countries and 40 different languages. Mathers and Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played his mother on the show, are close friends.
Jerry Mathers Education and Military Service
Mathers momentarily put acting on hold when he was a teenager in order to focus on schoolwork. During his time at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, Beaver and the Trappers were his band. He enlisted in the United States Air Force Reserve in 1966, while still a student, and stayed in the service after graduation, eventually rising to the rank of Sergeant. For his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, he attended the University of California at Berkeley in 1973.
Jerry Mathers Back to Entertainment
Mathers returned to acting in 1978 after spells as a commercial bank loan officer and a real estate entrepreneur. He appeared in an episode of the television series “Flying High” and starred with Tony Dow in a production of the play “Boeing, Boeing” in Kansas City in the year of his retirement from television. Afterwards, Mathers travelled with Dow in “So Long, Stanley” for a year and a half. 1981 saw him working as a disc DJ in Anaheim, where he was cast alongside Philip MacHale and Lee Purcell in the made-for-television fantasy film “The Girl, the Gold Watch and Dynamite.”
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He resumed his role as the Beaver in the television reunion movie “Still the Beaver,” which featured the majority of the original cast, including Mathers. Beaver’s new series premiered on Disney Channel in 1984, and was picked up by TBS for broadcast syndication after the film’s success. The series was renamed “The New Leave it to Beaver” and ended in 1989 after 101 episodes. Mathers made an appearance as the Beaver in an episode of “The Love Boat” during this time period.
Jerry Mathers Later Acting
Since then, Mathers has been on shows like “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” “Vengeance Unlimited,” “Diagnosis: Murder,” as well as “Married… With Children.” “The Weakest Link: Children’s Edition,” a special edition of “The Weakest Link” in 2001, featured Mathers, who was eliminated after the first round. His Broadway debut was in the Tony-winning musical Hairspray, which he appeared in in 2007. Neil Simon Theater hosted a production of Wilbur Turnblad that featured Mathers in the lead role as the dancer.
Jerry Mathers Personal Life
In 1974, Mathers married Diana Platt, a college sweetheart. In 1981, the pair split up. Rhonda Gehring, whom Mathers met while touring with “So Long, Stanley,” later became his wife. Three children were born to the couple: Mercedes, Noah, and Gretchen. In 1997, the couple divorced. Mathematics married for the third time in 2011 to Teresa Modnick, a woman he has known since childhood.
Mathers was first diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 1996 and has had it ever since. The next year, he signed up for a Jenny Craig weight loss programme and lost more than 40 pounds. As a result, he became the brand’s first ever male spokesperson. As a spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance programme in 2009, he became a national spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
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