Trivia: Child actor Jerry Mathers began picking up modeling work at the age of two. His first TV appearance was on Ed Wynn's variety show in 1950. Among Mather's larger film roles were the son of Shirley MacLaine in Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry (1955) and the son of Bob Hopeand Eva Marie Saint in That Certain Feeling (1955). In 1956, Mathers was cast as all-American kid Theodore "Beaver" Clever in It's a Small World, an unsold pilot film that showed up on the syndicated anthology Studio 57. One year later, a heavily revamped and recast It's a Small World re-emerged as the weekly sitcom Leave It to Beaver, with Mathers in the title role. He starred in 234 episodes of Beaver from 1957 through 1963, literally growing up before the eyes of the nation. Unable to sustain his acting career into his teen years, Mathers quit show business for nearly a decade, attending UCLA, selling real estate, and denying rumors that he'd been killed in Vietnam. In 1983, Mathers starred in the "retro" made-for-TV film Still the Beaver, which evolved into a moderately successful weekly cable series, The New Leave It to Beaver (1985-89), Essentially, Mathers played himself: a middle-aged divorced father, wondering just what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Jerry Mathers' professional life in the 1990s has been a maelstrom of personal appearances, TV guest shots, and punchline bits on Jay Leno's Tonight Show.

Trivia: Tony Dow is best remembered for playing Wally Cleaver, the clean-cut and much wiser older brother of Beaver on the classic family sitcom Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963). Since the show's demise, he has appeared sporadically in a couple feature films and in a few television movies. He reprised the role of Wally in the 1980s in the made-for-TV reunion film Still the Beaver (1983) and in the series it spawned. In 1965, Dow starred in the short-lived series Never Too Young. After a final feature-film appearance as a judge in the good-natured, nostalgic spoof of the Beach Party movies Back to the Beach (1987), Dow disappeared for a few years and then re-emerged as a director of television episodes for such series as Babylon 5 (1993) and as a producer of films such as It Came From Outer Space II (1996).

Trivia: Though she played many diverse roles in films of the '50s before Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963), slim, blonde, and wholesome-looking Barbara Billingsley will always be best remembered as June Cleaver, one of the greatest mothers in the vast pantheon of television sitcom domestic goddesses. In addition to her filmwork, Billingsley also appeared on a number of television plays on such shows as Four Star Playhouse and Matinee Theater. Following the end of Beaver, Billingsley traveled extensively until the late '70s. She made her acting comeback playing the crazy "Jive Lady" in Airplane (1980). In 1983, she reprised her role as June Cleaver in the television reunion movie Still the Beaver, which spawned a television series by the same name two years later. In 1984, she gave voice to the character of Nanny in Jim Hanson's animated kids' show Muppet Babies. After that, she appeared occasionally in movies and made guest television appearances; in 1997, she played Aunt Martha in the big-screen version of Leave It to Beaver. Billingsley died in 2010 after a long illness.

Trivia: American actor Hugh Beaumont originally studied for the clergy, remaining busy as a lay minister throughout his acting career. After stage experience, Beaumont arrived in Hollywood in 1940. While most of the draftable leading men were away during World War II, Beaumont enjoyed a brief spell of stardom; his faint resemblance to actor Lloyd Nolan enabled Beaumont to inherit Nolan's screen role of detective Michael Shayne in a series of inexpensive programmers. After the war, Beaumont returned to character parts, contributing memorable moments to such films as The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947). He also played quite a few villains during this period; fans of Beaumont's later television work are in for a jolt as they watch the affable Hugh connive and murder his way through 1948's Money Madness. During the early 1950s, Beaumont frequently popped up in uncredited featured roles at 20th Century-Fox, most prominently in Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) as the doctor killed by drunken driver Michael Rennie, and in The Revolt of Mamie Stover as the Honolulu cop who advises goodtime girl Jane Russell to get out of town. In 1957, Beaumont was cast as philosophy-dispensing suburban dad Ward Cleaver on the popular sitcom Leave It to Beaver (he replaced Casey Adams, who played Ward in the 1955 pilot). While he despaired that the series might ruin his chances for good film roles, Beaumont remained with Beaver until its cancellation in 1963. Hugh Beaumont retired from show business in the late 1960s, launching a second career as a successful Christmas tree farmer.

Trivia: Amid the all-too-common stories of child performers who never made a happy transition to adult lives and careers, Beverly Washburn's career stands as one of the great success stories. Born in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Day 1943, she made her uncredited screen debut in 1950, at age six, as the first victim of a plague-carrier in the thriller The Killer That Stalked New York. Even at that early age, she had a screen magnetism that shone through to audiences (and makes the death of her character, midway through the movie, a highly emotional moment for the viewer, despite taking place off-screen). The following year, she turned up (once more uncredited) playing the little girl who unknowingly entertains two visitors from the center of the earth in the feature film Superman and the Mole Men (1951), which introduced George Reeves in the role of Superman, and which was later re-edited into the two-part Adventures of Superman episode The Unknown People. She also had one great scene with James Stewart in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and appeared in small, uncredited roles in George Stevens' Shane (1953) and Edward Dmytryk's The Juggler (1953), starring Kirk Douglas, which was notable as the first Hollywood film shot in Israel. The mid-'50s saw a sharp downturn in film production and mass layoffs at most of the studios, and for the next five years, Washburn primarily worked in television, on series as different as Dragnet and The Loretta Young Show -- where the young actress was part of the stock company for both series -- and The Jack Benny Show. Apart from being a very quick study and an appealing child, Washburn was also popular with producers and directors for her ability to cry on cue, which eliminated the need for many a retake. Her range and ability to memorize lines -- and not just her own, but those of the performers around her -- allowed her to take roles on numerous anthology shows and guest spots on series such as Father Knows Best, Fury, and Leave It to Beaver, and she was also one of the regular cast members on an earlier Barbara Billingsley series called Professional Father. In 1957, she returned to feature films by way of Walt Disney in the movie Old Yeller, playing Lisbeth Searcy, but a lot of her work remained confined to television, across a whole range of series, including anthology series, comedies, westerns, dramas, and crime thrillers, plus appearing as a sketch player in The Hollywood Palace, one of the live variety shows of the early/middle '60s.Washburn was unable to professionally break stride as she reached her early twenties, owing to her family's financial situation. Her father contracted a serious illness in the early '60s, and in addition to being unable to work, he required expensive medical treatments. Washburn actually went to court -- successfully -- to get the trust fund money her parents had started to put aside for her from age six released, in order to pay for her father's treatments. She remained busy throughout the 1960s, and among the many series in which she turned up was the original Star Trek. Fans will likely remember Washburn as Lieutenant Galway, the luckless crewmember who succumbs to the old-age-like radiation sickness encountered on planet Gamma Hydra 2 in the episode "The Deadly Years" -- though it must be conceded that the 20-second century hairdo she was forced to wear in that episode did not become her (making her look like a young Alice Ghostley) She also appeared in episodes of The Streets of San Francisco and Scarecrow and Mrs. King and was in the 2003 pilot to Las Vegas. Washburn was still working in 2009, and, indeed, in that decade had found herself participating in cult celebrations of one of the stranger feature films in which she ever appeared, Jack Hill's Spider Baby (1964).

Trivia: Towheaded child actor Tommy Ivo played Cousin Arne in I Remember Mama (1948) but is perhaps better remembered for his appearances opposite Charles Starrett in Columbia's long-running "Durango Kid" Western series. Ivo popped up in no less than six entries, often mistaking the masked avenger for a real bandit but always wanting to emulate him by the fadeout -- just like the front-row kids of the day. Ivo was fairly busy in television in the late '40s and early '50s as well, so busy in fact that he earned the nickname "TV Tommy Ivo." When his career slowed down in the late '50s, Ivo found a new outlet for his talents -- as a professional hot rod driver.

Trivia: Supporting actor Ken Osmond is best remembered for playing Wally Cleaver's oily, conniving best friend Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963), a role he has periodically capitalized on in films and subsequent incarnations of the ever-popular series. Prior to getting that role, Osmond -- usually billed as Kenneth Osmond -- was already a busy child actor, playing supporting parts in such big-budget Warner Bros. films as So Big (his big-screen debut) at age eight. He made the rounds of the studios, appearing in Fox's tear-jerker Good Morning, Miss Dove in 1955, as well as the comedy Everything But the Truth at Universal in 1956. It was a year later that he took on the part of Eddie Haskell in Leave It to Beaver, which was produced by Universal's television unit. Osmond's work as Eddie earned him a Youth In Films Lifetime Achievement Award. Following the show's cancellation, Osmond did occasional television work, turning up in one episode of The Munsters (playing -- surprise! -- a troublemaking student) and elsewhere on the small screen, as well as in Paramount's 1967 college campus exploitation drama C'mon, Let's Live a Little, before he left acting. Osmond and his brother founded a charter helicopter company, and he later spent 18 years as a Los Angeles police officer. After sustaining multiple gunshot wounds during an attempted arrest, Osmond had to retire. In 1983, he returned to acting and Eddie Haskell, in The New Leave It to Beaver. The show ran until 1989 and featured his real sons, Eric and Christian Osmond, playing Eddie's sons Freddie and Boomer. In 1997, Osmond again showed up as Eddie in a cameo role in the feature-film version of Leave It to Beaver.