Tony Doe, who as Wally Cleaver on the sitcom Leave It to Beaver helped create the popular and enduring image of the American teenager of the 1950s and 1960s, died Wednesday. He was 77.
Frank Bilotta, who represented Dow in his work as a sculptor, confirmed his death in an email to The Associated Press.
No cause was given, but Dow was on hospice and announced in May that he had been diagnosed with prostate and gallbladder cancer.
“Although this is a very sad day, I have comfort and peace that he is in a better place,” Dow’s son Christopher said in a post on his father’s official Facebook page.
“He was the best father anyone could ask for. He was my coach, my mentor, my voice of reason, my best friend, my best man at my wedding and my hero.”
A post on Dow’s Facebook page on Tuesday prematurely announced that he had died, but his wife and management team later removed the post and explained that it had been announced in error.
A career-defining role
Dow’s Wally was an often annoyed but essentially loving big brother who constantly rescued the main character, Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver, played by Jerry Mathers, in the series, which was synonymous with the sometimes humorous, wholesome image of the American family of the 1950s years of the last century.
Dow was born and raised in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles – his mother was a stunt double who was the double of silent film star Clara Bow – but his parents didn’t push him into show business.
He had only done a little acting and appeared in a couple of pilots. After participating in an open casting call, he landed the career-defining role of Wally.
Dow would play the role for six seasons and more than 200 episodes from 1957 to 1963 in primetime on CBS and ABC, then for more than 100 episodes in 1980 in a syndicated series run.
On the show, Wally, sometimes the very center of the plot, navigates the worlds of junior high and high school — his duplicitous best friend Eddie Haskell by his side — with a little more wisdom than his little brother. The show’s storylines suggested that Wally was destined for great things—he mentions wanting to be an aerospace engineer—and he tended to find himself in moral dilemmas that stemmed from his underlying goodness.
From left, Jerry Mathers, Barbara Billingsley and Tony Doe, and standing from left, Frank Bank and Ken Osmond, pose for a photo as they gather to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Leave it to Beaver in Santa Monica, Calif., Sept. 27, 2007. (Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)
Dow’s favorite episode was the one in which the ever-teaching father, Ward Cleaver, played by Hugh Beaumont, wants his boys to know what his childhood was like. He takes them into the desert even though they have what they think is pressing work at home.
“The guys didn’t want to go because Zombies From Outer Space was playing in the theater,” Dow said in a 2018 interview with Sidewalks Entertainment at Silicon Valley Comic-Con.
After the trip, at the end of the episode, Ward finds the boys on top of a hill with binoculars, thinking they are out in nature.
“There were zombies from space watching at the entrance,” Doe said with a laugh.
The show was still popular when it went off the air, but it had naturally evolved with Wally about to go to college and Beaver about to go to high school.
Dow’s death leaves Mathers and Rusty Stevens, who played Beaver’s friend Larry Mondello, as the only surviving members of the series’ main cast. Beaumont died in 1982. Barbara Billingsley, who played mother June Cleaver, died in 2010. Ken Osmond, who played Haskell, died in 2020.
The actor enjoys a career as a writer-director and sculptor
From left, Leave It To Beaver original cast members Ken Osmond, Tony Doe, Barbara Billingsley and Jerry Mathers during the filming of their television special Still The Beaver in Los Angeles on December 10, 1982. (Wally Fong/Associated Press )
Dow would appear as a guest star on other television series in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including My Three Sons, Dr. Kildare, Adam-12, Emergency, Square Pegs and Knight Rider.
He took a break from acting to serve three years in the US National Guard in the late 1960s.
From 1983 to 1989, amid the cultural craze for nostalgia television, Dow reprized the role of Wally on The New Leave it to Beaver.
He began writing and directing episodes of that series and would go on to work as a director in television in the 1990s on shows including The New Lassie, Babylon 5, Harry and the Hendersons and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
At a time when such disclosures were rare, Doe went public with her clinical depression in the 1980s and made self-help videos about accepting and coping with the illness.
Dow poses with some of his works at his home and studio in Los Angeles, Thursday, September 18, 2012. Dow worked as a painter, gaining an excellent reputation as a sculptor. One of his bronze works was accepted in 2008 at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a 150-year art show held annually at the Louvre. (Reed Saxon/Associated Press)
Along with appearances in later years at pop culture conventions, often alongside Mather, Dow worked as a painter, gaining a formidable reputation as a sculptor.
One of his bronze works was accepted in 2008 at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a 150-year art show held annually at the Louvre.
Doe told The Associated Press in 2012 that his debuts drew as many people who wanted to rub shoulders with the Beaver’s big brother as they did to see his art.
“I think it’s hard, especially with the character of Wally, to be taken seriously in almost anything other than that,” he said with a laugh and a shake of his head.
Doe is survived by his wife Lauren of 42 years, son Christopher, daughter-in-law Melissa and brother Dion.
Add Comment