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: In any given circus picture made between 1938 to 1964, chances were that Eddie Marr was in the cast. Possessed of leather lungs and a slightly larcenous demeanor, Marr was the archetypal sideshow barker, as exemplified by his weekly appearance on the 1956 TVer Circus Boy. One of his rare appearances outside the big top was as composer Buddy DeSylva in the 1945 George Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue. Eddie Marr also appeared frequently on radio, playing a variety of gamblers, gangsters, race track touts, city detectives, travelling salesmen and, yes, carnival barkers in such series as The Damon Runyon Theatre, The Lux Radio Theatre, The Jack Carson Show and Murder Will Out.