What Ever Happened to the Cast of ‘Leave It to Beaver’?

Jerry Mathers as Theodore ‘Beaver’ Cleaver

Jerry Mathers starred as Theodore ‘Beaver’ Cleaver, the titular character who was often getting into trouble.

When the show ended, Mathers went on to a parochial high school, where he played football, served a stint in the Air National Guard, and then majored in philosophy at Berkeley. He met Diana Piatt there, and they were married in 1974. While he was in college, a rumor spread all over the country that he had been killed in Vietnam. “People sent letters of condolence and flowers to my family,” he told PEOPLE in 1977.

In 1978, Mathers re-entered the entertainment industry. That year, he and Tony Dow starred in a production of the comedy play Boeing, Boeing, which ran for 10 weeks in Kansas City, Mo. 

In 1983, Mathers reprised his role in the television reunion film Still the Beaver, which featured the majority of the original cast from Leave It to Beaver. The success of the television movie led to the development of a series titled the same.  In 1998, he released his memoir And Jerry Mathers as The Beaver. 

Mathers has been married three times. He met his first wife, Diana Platt, in college. They married in 1974 and later divorced. Mathers met his second wife, Rhonda Gehring, while touring in the production of So Long, Stanley. They have three children: Noah, Mercedes and Gretchen. Mathers and Gehring divorced in 1997. Mathers married his third wife, Teresa Modnick, on January 30, 2011, and they have been together since. 

Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver

Barbara Billingsley played the pearl-wearing Mom on Leave It to Beaver. In a 1997 interview with TV Guide, she said, “[June] set a good example for what a wife could be. I had two boys at home when I did the show. I think the character became kind of like me and vice versa. I’ve never known where one started and where one stopped.” 

After the show ended, Billingsley was typecast as a “mom” and had issues finding roles. She took 17 years away from the public eye and travelled extensively. She spoofed her wholesome image by starring in the movie Airplane! as the passenger who spoke jive. This role revived her career and brought her back into the spotlight. 

Returning to television, she appeared on episodes of Mork & Mindy and The Love Boat. In 1983, she reprised her role as June Cleaver in the Leave It to Beaver television movie, Still the Beaver. Hugh Beaumont died in 1982, so she played his widow. She also appeared in The New Leave It to Beaver from 1985 to 1989. During the run of The New Leave It to Beaver, Billingsley became the voice of Nanny on Muppet Babies from 1984 to 1991. Billingsley was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series in 1989 and 1990 for her performance in Muppet Babies.

After The New Leave It to Beaver ended its run in 1989, Billingsley appeared in guest roles on Empty Nest and Murphy Brown. She reprised her role as June Cleaver in various television shows, including Elvira’s Movie Macabre, Amazing Stories, Baby Boom, Hi Honey, I’m Home! and Roseanne.

Billingsley was married three times, and her first husband, restaurateur Glenn Billingsley, was a nephew of Sherman Billingsley, who owned New York’s famed Stork Club. Her other husbands, both of whom predeceased her, were director Roy Kelino and Dr. William Mortenson.

Glenn and Barbara Billingsley, who divorced in 1947, had two sons, Drew and Glenn, Jr., and four grandchildren. Billingsley died in 2010 at the age of 94.

Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver

Hugh Beaumont played Ward Cleaver, the patriarch of the family and one of the best-recognized television dads.

After Leave It to Beaver ended in 1963, Beaumont appeared in community theater productions and played guest roles on television series such as Marcus Welby, Petticoat Junction and Wagon Train. In February 1966, he made another appearance on Lassie.

He found success as a writer, selling several television screenplays, radio scripts and short stories to various magazines. He left the entertainment business to launch a second career as a Christmas tree farmer in Grand Rapids, Minn.

In 1941, Beaumont married actress Kathryn Adams, and they had sons Hunter and Mark and a daughter, Kristy. Their marriage lasted 33 years until their divorce in 1974. 

After a stroke left him partially paralyzed, he officially retired from acting in 1972 and stayed close to his Minnesota home. In 1982, he went to Munich to visit his son, Eric, a psychology professor. He died of a heart attack during the trip.

Tony Dow as Wally Cleaver

Tony Dow played Wally Cleaver, Beaver’s older brother. 

His list of acting credits included roles in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Lassie, Never Too Young and Mr. Novak. Dow was also a noted director on series including The New Leave It to Beaver, Honey; I Shrunk The Kids: The TV Show, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Crusade and Babylon 5.

In January 2022, Dow spoke candidly with CBS This Morning about how childhood stardom had led him to feel a lack of autonomy. “From the time I was 11 or 12, I was told what to do. I was told on the set. I was told at home,” he said. “I didn’t have control of my life.”

He added that the role of Wally did define him, though he didn’t necessarily sign up for the fame that followed — or the anger and depression. “I was gonna have to live with it for the rest of my life,” he acknowledged. “It’s sad to be famous at 12 years old or something, and then you grow up and become a real person, and nothing’s happening for you.”

In the later years of his life, Dow found meaning again in art. He spent the last 20 years as a sculptor with a passion for turning art into something new — including altering emotions on statues. Alongside Lauren Shulkind, whom he married in 1980, he put his artwork at the forefront.

Dow died of cancer in 2022 at the age of 77. 

Ken Osmond as Eddie Haskell

In the show, Ken Osmond played Eddie Haskell — the smart-mouthed kid who was best friends with Wally.

Osmond reprised his role in the 1983 reboot, The New Leave It to Beaver, and in the 1997 film, Leave It to Beaver.

Osmond also appeared in several other television series and films, including Lassie, Happy Days and Hi Honey, I’m Home.

He eventually quit acting to start a helicopter service in L.A. When his chopper crashed in 1966, ultimately putting him out of business, Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

“All I wanted to do when I was a kid was be a policeman or a cowboy,” said Osmond, “and I never passed the test for cowboy.” While on patrol in 1980, he was shot three times but was saved by his bulletproof vest and his belt buckle. 

Osmond died in 2020 at the age of 76.

Robert “Rusty” Stevens as Larry Mondello

Larry Mondello was Beaver Cleaver’s friend and classmate. Actor Robert Stevens left the show in 1960 when his family moved from California to Philadelphia, ending his time as Larry on Leave It to Beaver. 

After Leave It to Beaver, Stevens continued to receive occasional roles in TV shows through 1963, including My Three Sons, Perry Mason and The Rifleman, before he stopped acting as a child. 

He briefly returned to acting when he reprised his role as Larry Mondello in the 1983 made-for-television reunion movie Still the Beaver. Mathers tracked down Stevens after searching for many years, and Stevens joined the cast for Still the Beaver. At the time, he was working as a car insurance salesman in New Jersey.

He also appeared in three episodes of the follow-up series The New Leave It to Beaver, which aired through 1989.

Stanley Fafara as Whitey Whitney

Stanley Fafara played Whitey Whitney, another one of Beaver’s friends. 

After the show’s cancellation in 1963, he attended North Hollywood High School. He became friendly with the band Paul Revere & the Raiders and lived with them briefly. He developed an alcohol habit and began to use drugs.

Fafara went to live with his sister but continued to drink and use narcotics. He returned to Los Angeles in 1972, where he was married briefly. There, he supported himself by dealing drugs. 

In the 1980s, he was arrested for breaking into pharmacies seven times. Fafara was sentenced to a year in jail after being arrested and convicted of an eighth burglary. After his release from jail, Fafara tried several jobs but eventually returned to dealing drugs. Fafara later developed a heroin addiction and was in and out of rehabilitation centers for many years. He became sober in 1995.

Fafara died in 2003 at the age of 54th birthday, in Portland, Ore., of complications from hernia surgery he had undergone the previous month.

Luke Tiger Fafara as Tooey Brown

An older brother to Stanley Fafara, Luke Tiger Fafara was also part of the Leave It to Beaver cast, playing Tooey Brown, a friend of Wally Cleaver’s. 

Fafara left Leave It to Beaver in 1960 and stopped acting professionally in 1961. Fafara returned to acting in 1983 with an appearance as the adult Tooey Brown in the television reunion film Still the Beaver. He reprised the role in the follow-up sitcom The New Leave It to Beaver from 1983 to 1987. 

Farfara has a son, Bradley James “Dez” Fafara, who is a vocalist in the metal bands DevilDriver and Coal Chamber.

Stephen Talbot as Gilbert Bates

Stephen Talbot played Beaver’s friend, Gilbert, in more than 50 episodes of the show Leave It to Beaver. 

After being a successful child actor in the 1950s, Talbot quit acting at the age of 14. 

In 1970, he graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he studied English and film. He was also very active in anti-Vietnam War protests and made films about the anti-war movement, including March on Washington, DC III and Year of the Tiger, which he filmed in Vietnam.

Talbot turned to reporting and documentary filmmaking. He began as an on-air reporter for KQED, the public television station in San Francisco. His success with two first documentaries set the tone for his career: Broken Arrow and The Case of Dashiell Hammett. Both films won the George Foster Peabody Awards.

In a 1997 article in Salon, Talbot explained why he turned down the opportunity to return for the Leave It to Beaver reunion series. “I’m trying to establish myself as a documentary filmmaker and an investigative reporter,” he explained to the producers. “I can’t go back to being Gilbert.”

Talbot began producing documentaries for the PBS series Frontline in 1992 with his film on the Bush-Clinton presidential race, The Best Campaign Money Can Buy, which won a DuPont / Columbia University Award. This marked the beginning of his long association with Frontline, where he wrote and produced 10 documentaries for the series. Throughout his nearly 40-year career in public television, Talbot has continued to make history documentaries and biographies. 

Talbot married Pippa Gordon, a medical social worker, in 1978, and they had two kids together: Dashiell and Caitlin.

Veronica Cartwright as Violet Rutherford

The British-born actress had repeat roles on Leave It to Beaver as Beaver’s classmates Violet Rutherford and, later, Peggy MacIntosh. 

After Leave It to Beaver, Cartwright had an active film and television career. Cartwright appeared in the films The Children’s Hour and The Birds, where she was cast alongside her television father from Leave It to Beaver, Richard Deacon; however, the two don’t appear on screen together. She won a regional Emmy Award for the television movie Tell Me Not in Mournful Numbers. She achieved adult success with film roles in Inserts, Goin’ South and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Cartwright’s breakout feature was Alien where she was originally cast as Ellen Ripley, but director Ridley Scott instead cast her as Lambert before shooting. The infamous chestburster scene in the film featured a genuine reaction from Cartwright, who was not informed that blood would be involved. She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Her subsequent film roles include The Right Stuff, Flight of the Navigator, The Witches of Eastwick, Money Talks and Scary Movie 2. She was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Witches of Eastwick.

Cartwright has frequent guest roles on various television shows. Cartwright has received three Emmy Award nominations, one for her work in ER in 1997, and two for her work on The X-Files in 1998 and 1999. 

Cartwright’s many theatre credits include Electra, Talley’s Folly, The Bat and The Master Builder. Her performances in The Hands of Its Enemy, The Triplet Collection, and Homesteaders earned her Drama-Logue Awards for Best Actress.

Cartwright married actor Richard Gates in 1968 and was with him until 1972. She then married  Stanley Goldstein, a founder of the CVS Health corporation, in 1976 and was with him until 1980. Her third marriage to television director Richard Compton in 1982 lasted until Compton died in 2007.

Jeri Weil as Judy Hensler

Jeri Weil played Judy Hensler, who is credited with being one of Beaver’s nemeses for frequently tattling and teasing him. 

Weil starred in 31 episodes of the show, exiting because she disagreed with the showrunners’ attempts to hide her developing body.

In March 2025, Weil told Remind Magazine that she quit acting because she “had such a bad taste in my mouth from those experiences.”

“I just stopped and wanted nothing to do with it. I read once where it said they fired me, but that wasn’t true. They didn’t fire me. I don’t know where I read that, but they didn’t let me go. I let them go. That’s the true story.”

Weil left acting to pursue a career in real estate. She reprised her role as Judy Hensler in a single guest appearance on a 1987 episode of the revival series The New Leave It to Beaver.