Leave It to Beaver Star Tony Dow Hospitalized (Tragic) - YouTube

Tony Dow, the beloved television actor who  rose to fame portraying older brother Wally  

Cleaver on the hit 1950s sitcom Leave It to  Beaver, has recently been hospitalized with  

pneumonia. Due to a large number of COVID-19  hospitalizations in the Los Angeles area,  

the star had to wait for 24 hours before being  admitted into his room. Join Facts Verse as we  

take a look at the tragic reason why Leave  It to Beaver star Tony Dow was hospitalized.

Tony Dow is a television actor that rose to  fame portraying the character of Wally Cleaver  

on the show Leave It to Beaver. Wally was the  older brother of the show’s titular character,  

Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver. The actor has  recently been hospitalized for pneumonia  

and was forced to wait for 24 hours before  being admitted into the hospital due to  

the extreme amount of COVID-19 cases  in the Los Angeles area. Thankfully,  

the actor was eventually given treatment, and  his wife says that he is quickly recovering.

Of course, both Tony and his wife wondered if the  illness that Tony was suffering from was COVID-19.  

Thankfully, the actor has tested negative  multiple times. According to his wife, the  

actor will likely only be in the hospital for a  week or so before being released. With the recent  

news of Tony’s hospitalization, fans have taken a  renewed interest in the former child star’s past,  

and what he’s been up to in the years since  appearing on the hit show Leave It to Beaver.

Leave It to Beaver aired from 1957 to 1963. After  the show came to an end, Tony made some guest  

appearances in other shows. However, he eventually  decided that he needed to take a break from acting  

and ventured out into other career fields.  In 1965, Tony joined the National Guard.  

He stayed there until 1968, at which point he  took up working as a contractor, performing  

renovations on luxury condos. In the 1970s, the  former child star began studying journalism.

When Tony was hired to play Wally on Leave It  to Beaver, the young boy didn’t have any prior  

acting experience. Another child performer had  already been cast in the role for the show’s pilot  

but proved too old by the time that filming  for the rest of the show’s episodes began.  

An open casting call was put out,  and Tony was one of the kids that  

answered it. Tony was given the  role, and the rest is history!

After Leave It to Beaver came to an end, Tony  continued performing for a few years before  

deciding to take his break from acting. Some of  the shows that Tony appeared as a guest star on  

after Leave It to Beaver came to an  end include The Greatest Show on Earth,  

My Three Sons, and Adam-12. In 1963, he was  given a recurring role on the series Mr. Novak  

that saw him appear in five episodes. When  Tony felt that he wasn’t getting roles that  

were worthy of his time, he decided  to dedicate his time to other things.

Tony returned to acting after studying journalism  and achieved some modest success on television  

throughout the 1980s. Although the actor never  returned to the iconic status that he had held  

during his years on the original Leave It to  Beaver, he was rarely hurting for work throughout  

the decade. In 1982, he played the father of  a girl played by a young Sarah Jessica Parker  

on the show Square Pegs. Tony also guest-starred  on numerous other programs during the decade,  

including Knight Rider, Quincy M.E.,  and Murder, She Wrote. In 1985,  

Tony was cast to reprise the role of Wally  Cleaver on The New Leave It to Beaver.

In addition to Tony, The New Leave It to Beaver  also featured much of the rest of the Leave It to  

Beaver cast returning to reprise their roles. The  only main former cast member that didn’t return  

to the sequel program was Hugh Beaumont,  who played the Cleaver family patriarch.  

Sadly, the actor had already  died at that point in history.

The New Leave It to Beaver was a success, lasting  for over 100 episodes before coming to an end  

at end of the decade, in 1989. The show  had been going by the name of Still the  

Beaver for its first season and was preceded by a  made-for-television reunion film of the same name.  

The first season of the show aired on The Disney  Channel, which was relatively new at the time.  

The new name came with the network change  when the show began airing on WTBS.

Tony continued acting on television after  The New Leave It to Beaver came to an end,  

appearing in a 1989 episode of Charles In Charge.  In 1990, Tony appeared in two episodes of Freddy’s  

Nightmares, which was a television show based upon  the popular A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.  

In his later life, Tony would venture  out into other fields of interest again,  

becoming a sculptor with works on display in the  Louvre! If you’re enjoying this video so far,  

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After his successful return to television acting  during the 1980s, Tony Dow decided it was time to  

take a step behind the camera. In the 1990s, Tony  began directing. Over the course of the decade,  

the former child star directed several  episodes of notable television programs,  

including the science fiction shows Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5. Tony also worked  

behind the scenes of shows in other ways,  even performing visual effects on Doctor Who!

After his successful time behind the cameras, Tony  felt that it was time to take another break from  

filmed entertainment. The actor instead decided  he was going to pursue art in a different way. It  

was in the 2000s that Tony took up sculpting, and  he proved to be incredibly good at it. In 2008,  

a bronze sculpture of Tony’s was featured  at an art show in the Louvre. Of course,  

the Louvre is one of the preeminent art  museums in the world, located in Paris, France.

Although Tony never achieved fame in Hollywood as  an adult that could match his fame on the original  

Leave It to Beaver, the former child star turned  out much more mentally stable than many others  

both before and since. Tony has come to credit  much of this mental wellness to his parents,  

who sheltered him from much of the toxicity  of the Hollywood industry. In fact,  

Tony wasn’t even allowed to watch Leave It to  Beaver during the years that he was filming it!

In addition to not being able to watch his  own show, Tony was put through public school  

and treated pretty much like a normal child by  his parents. This allowed the young boy to grow  

up without much of the delusional thinking  and unhealthy behavioral patterns that have  

caused other child stars to self-destruct in  later years. Tony has also said that the cast  

and crew of Leave It to Beaver always  maintained a safe and family-friendly  

atmosphere that wasn’t much different  from what the show portrayed to audiences.

By the time Leave It to Beaver came to an end, the  show had lasted for six seasons and 234 episodes.  

Although Tony went on to find great success in  his life outside of the show, he suffered for  

depression for a time after the show aired its  final episode. During the actor’s early 20s,  

he started feeling intrusive negative thoughts  about himself. He didn’t think anything of it at  

first but eventually felt so sad that he couldn’t  bring himself to get out of bed. It was at this  

point that the actor decided to seek professional  help, and was diagnosed with depression.  

Thankfully, his depression has been treated,  and the actor is currently happy as can be!

Whenever Tony has talked about his period  of depression, he hasn’t been afraid to  

mention the irony of how the reality of his  depression contradicted with the idyllic fantasy  

represented by Leave It to Beaver. Tony has  even wondered if spending so much time on  

the set of the show as a child resulted  in him having unrealistic expectations  

about how friendly of an environment  the real world was. While it’s possible  

that Tony’s time on the show had a mildly  negative impact on the young actor’s psyche,  

he still turned out better than many of his  peers due to the influence of his parents.

Tony was born on April 13, 1945, and  is currently 76 years old. Hopefully,  

he will be released from the hospital soon  with a clean bill of health! The only other  

surviving former main cast member from Leave It  to Beaver is the Beaver himself, Jerry Mathers.  

Jerry is currently 73 years old. He has led a  similar life to his on-screen older brother,  

venturing outside the world of entertainment.  He joined the United States Air Force Reserve  

in 1966 and went on to get an education in  philosophy from the University in California.

Besides Tony and Jerry, the rest of the main  former Leave It to Beaver cast members have  

passed away. This includes Ken Osmond, Barbara  Billingsley, and Hugh Beaumont. Hugh was the first  

one to go and was thus the only main cast member  not to return for The New Leave It to Beaver.  

Hugh died of a heart attack in 1982, at the age  of 72. Barbara died in 2010, at the age of 94.  

Ken Osmond, who played the Cleaver’s neighbor,  Eddie Haskell, died just recently. Ken became a  

police officer after his time on the show  and was shot in the line of duty in 2020.

Although Leave It to Beaver fans were  incredibly worried when they heard  

the news that Tony Dow had been hospitalized,  it appears that he is fine and will make a full  

recovery very soon! Comment down below to  share if you’re sending Tony your best wishes,  

or if you were surprised to learn any of the  interesting trivia featured in this video! As  

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