The Only Major Actors Still Alive From Leave It To Beaver
Few TV shows define the early days of the medium like "Leave it to Beaver." Over six decades after it began airing, the idyllic family sitcom isn't just synonymous with 1950s television, but 1950s America as a whole. While its white picket fence dreams have never been reflective of the real world, the show still functions as a gentle comedic escape from reality for many a classic TV fan.
As one of the oldest culturally significant TV shows still in syndication, it's impossible to watch "Leave It To Beaver" without wondering what became of the cheerful bunch of actors populating its sunny suburban world. Unfortunately, the considerable passage of time means that most of the actors involved in the series have died, but there are still three main actors — all of them former child stars — who are carving out paths for themselves in a post-"Leave it to Beaver" world.
Jerry Mathers, Theodore Cleaver AKA Beaver
Star Jerry Mathers played little rascal Beaver (aka Theodore Cleaver) across 235 episodes of the hit show. It's a role that Mathers has said he's still recognized for all over the world, but it's far from the only thing he's accomplished in his 75 years. After "Leave it to Beaver," Mathers graduated from a Sherman Oaks high school where he says he was more recognized as an athlete and musician (he was in a band called "Beaver and the Trappers," he once told Parade) than as The Beav.
One of the most surreal experiences of Mathers' life came in young adulthood when he joined the National Guard and a rumor soon spread that he had died in Vietnam. As Mathers told the Archive of American Television, the country learned of his military involvement after he wore his military dress for an Emmy presenter's gig, and at some point, an obituary was printed saying he had been killed in action. Even though Mathers never went to Vietnam, he says the rumor persisted because he didn't have a manager who could squash it. Co-star Tony Dow sent his family flowers, actress Shelley Winters name-dropped him while singing an anti-Vietnam song on "The Tonight Show," and high school classmates were surprised to see him alive even years later.
Mathers reportedly went on to major in philosophy, work at a bank and as a real estate broker and radio DJ, act on stage (he even appeared in "Hairspray" on Broadway), and return for the "Leave it to Beaver" legacy sequel in the '80s. After his diabetes diagnosis in the '90s, the actor began working in diabetes education and activism, a cause that seems to remain near and dear to his heart.
Rusty Stevens, Larry Mondello
"Leave it to Beaver" was the first ever on-screen role for child actor Rusty Stevens, who played Beav's bestie Larry in the first few seasons of the show. Larry was a snack-loving, troublesome partner in crime for the young protagonist, but his time on the show was cut short. In an interview actress Barbara Billingsley gave the Archive of American Television, she confessed that Stevens was let go from the show due to his overbearing stage mother. "We all loved Rusty so much. He was so good in that role and unfortunately, they had to let him go because his mother was such a pain in the neck," Billingsley said, explaining that she was always at the producers' office to "make demands."
While Stevens himself never seems to have spoken about this experience, he didn't stay in the acting business long. His other roles included spots on "Perry Mason, "Shirley Temple's Storybook," "77 Sunset Strip," and more, but by 1963 he had appeared in his final role as a child actor, on the Western series "The Rifleman." According to a blurb from The Star Democrat, the actor's family moved to Philadelphia afterward, and Stevens was working as a car insurance salesman in New Jersey as recently as the year 2000.
Though not much is known about Stevens' present-day life, he did make a reappearance on screen in the '80s, reprising his role as Larry Mondello in "Still the Beaver" and in 3 episodes of the next-generation spinoff "The New Leave it to Beaver." According to MeTV, his involvement in the later "Leave it to Beaver" projects was thanks to co-star Mathers, who spent years looking for him. Once he finally found Stevens, the article says, the former on-screen best pals never lost touch again.
Stephen Talbot, Gilbert Bates
After Larry Mondello hit the road, Gilbert Bates became Beaver's number-one friend and sidekick. "I was the blond kid with big ears who usually manipulated the gullible Beaver Cleaver into committing some minor transgression," Talbot recalled in a 1997 Salon piece that attempted to grapple with his sitcom legacy. Unlike other actors who either still praise "Beaver" or don't give interviews at all, Talbot openly questioned the show's place in the zeitgeist after he went on to become an activist, prolific reporter, and documentary producer. "Boomers still dominate the culture, and God knows boomers are a narcissistic, self-referential, TV generation," Talbot wrote in Salon when unpacking the show's enduring appeal. He also acknowledged the show's "retro appeal, even if we all know the image wasn't reality."
Talbot may have turned down the "Leave it to Beaver" reunion projects, but he's still spent plenty of time in the filmmaking world — largely as a reporter and non-fiction producer. Over the years, Talbot has worked with PBS, Frontline, KQED, and more, earning accolades for his coverage of everything from Iraq to Rush Limbaugh to corrupt judges. He's directed two films, "The Long March of Newt Gingrich" and this year's PBS doc about Nixon-era protests, "The Movement and the 'Madman.'"
Talbot's works have won Emmys and Peabodies, and he's not the only family member making critically acclaimed works: Joe Talbot, the filmmaker behind the phenomenal 2019 film "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," is Stephen's nephew. Talbot didn't act much after his turn on "Leave it to Beaver," but you can spot him in two other TV classics, "Perry Mason" and "The Twilight Zone."