The Only Major Actors Still Alive From My Three Sons
Despite being one of the longest-running live-action sitcoms of all time, you don't hear much about "My Three Sons" anymore. The series ran for an impressive 12 seasons beginning in 1960, producing 380 episodes of wholesome sitcom scenarios during a decade of tremendous upheaval. "The real world was quite tumultuous and revolution was in the air," star Barry Livingston told CBS News in a 2009 retrospective, "and we were still eating Uncle Charley's cookies and having milk."
"My Three Sons" doesn't have the enduring legacy of more thought-provoking shows of the '60s and '70s, like "M*A*S*H" and "The Twilight Zone," nor is it typically mentioned in the same breath as all-time-great comedies like "I Love Lucy" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Despite the show's absence from most abridged versions of TV history, though, it still connected with audiences in its time: the series about a widower raising three sons as a single dad nabbed three Emmy nominations, three WGA nominations, and it even won a Golden Globe for the overarching category "Best TV Show."
Nowadays, fans of "My Three Sons" can find the show on Prime Video, Pluto TV, and cable's home of all things classic television, MeTV. You also don't have to look far to find the work of three of the show's main stars (we're only counting actors who appeared in over 100 episodes of the series here), all of whom are still sharing their wisdom from decades spent in the acting world today.
Tina Cole (Katie Miller-Douglas)
The cast of "My Three Sons" grew up on the show, and that meant major life changes for their characters – including the marriages of most of the titular sons. In later seasons of the show, actor Tina Cole came on board the series as Katie, Robbie's girlfriend-turned-wife. Cole had worked as a musician and actor before "My Three Sons," and took on a few additional acting roles throughout the '70s before finding joy mostly in other endeavors.
In an interview with "The Jim Masters Show" in 2023, the host noted that Cole has worked teaching music, acting, and etiquette, while Cole herself noted that some of her most fulfilling work has been bringing the art of theater to kids. "I was the director for the Sacramento Children's Theater," Cole explained, noting that she "did it for 23, 24 years, and then COVID shut us down." Despite the program's bittersweet ending, it endured for a long time. "When we ended, we had produced 83 consecutive years of free musical theater for children kindergarten through third grade," Cole proudly told Masters.
Aside from teaching, Cole has produced and starred in the 2017 film "Take It from the Top," given reunion performances with her former family band The Four King Cousins, written the memoir "My Three Lives," and appeared in shows like "Eleanor & Franklin," movies like "Reawakened," and game shows including "Family Feud" and "Showoffs." According to Masters, Cole also has a prolific charitable track record: she's been involved with March of Dimes, the Children's Miracle Network, the Society For The Blind, and the Cancer League, plus she's a founding board member of the Sacramento Child Abuse Council.
Stanley Livingston (Richard 'Chip' Douglas)
The elder Livingston brother played Chip Douglas, son of Fred MacMurray's Steve, for all 12 seasons of "My Three Sons." After the show ended, the former child star continued appearing onscreen periodically, providing voices for the animated series "Devlin" and appearing in the creepy horror flick "Private Parts" and Roger Corman's softcore sci-fi comedy "Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds," among other titles. The actor's website notes that he's also worked on stage in plays like "See How They Run" and "Little White Lies," as well as several TV movies.
Though Livingston appears to have taken a couple of lengthy breaks from acting over the years, he's continued working in Hollywood during that time and has credits as a producer, director, editor, writer, cinematographer, and special effects creator. He produced and served as director of photography on the 2005 film "Checkers," and created multi-volume DVD sets titled "The Actor's Journey" (there's a version for kids and one for adults) full of practical industry advice. In a 2024 episode of "The Jim Masters Show," Livingston spoke about the necessity of teaching actors about tricky parts of the industry besides their craft.
"Acting, that's the thing you do the least when you're an actor," he explained. "You talk about it, you go out on interviews, you go out on auditions — there's just all this stuff that swirls around it." The interview also cited Livingston as the owner of First Team Productions, a company that has helped craft movies, shows, educational videos, ads and corporate content, music videos, live theater productions, and a Cinerama film, per its website. Most recently, Livingston appeared in "Antiquities — A Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Story." One of his most famous roles to date is as a real-life brother to Barry Livingston, his eventual co-star in the later seasons of "My Three Sons."
Barry Livingston (Ernie Thompson-Douglas)
Stanley Livingston's brother, Barry, joined the cast of "My Three Sons" in season 4. In the tradition of 20th-century primetime TV shows (see also: "The Donna Reed Show," "Bonanza", and lots of others), Barry Livingston played a child who ended up being adopted by the main family after another major cast member left the show. Livingston is perhaps still best known as bespectacled nerd Ernie, but he's had a long career on screen since the show ended, with roles in everything from "Mad Men" to "Zodiac" to "Ally McBeal."
Livingston has had a prolific career making typically small parts interesting, and has landed guest spots in dozens of TV shows, including hits like "The Nanny," "Two and a Half Men," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "Teen Wolf," and "Big Love." Unlike plenty of other former child stars, Livingston doesn't choose roles that knowingly wink at his most famous character, though he does seem to get typecast as geeks a lot. According to IMDb, he's next set to appear in the film "Blood Knot," which stars Michael Douglas.
The actor wrote a book about his experiences in Hollywood in the 2021 memoir "The Importance of Being Ernie," chronicling his life as a child star, his experiences coming of age in the party-friendly rock-and-roll era, and some of his most-known roles. In an interview with Celebrity Drop earlier this year, Livingston explained that after "My Three Sons" ended, he moved to New York to take acting classes and ended up working on Broadway, where he appeared in "The Skin of Our Teeth" in 1975.