Freak Out
06-04-2007, 06:35 PM
...Wilbur Turnblad. Who would have thought the Beaver would grow up to play in Hairspray.
June 5, 2007
And Jerry Mathers as ... Tracy Turnblad’s Father?
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
It shouldn’t have seemed weird, but it did: Jerry Mathers, also known as TV’s Beaver, having just polished off a 16-ounce steak at the Palm, picked up his cellphone and called his girlfriend, asking her to come over for dessert.
Mr. Mathers has as much right to grow up as anyone of course, and he has: two divorces, three children, a stock portfolio and, this past Saturday, a 59th birthday.
But it’s hard to look past that half owlish, half doughy face and that keenly sincere manner: A girlfriend? A cellphone? What would Gus the fireman say?
Tonight Mr. Mathers will make his Broadway debut in “Hairspray,” playing Wilbur Turnblad, Tracy Turnblad’s goofy and good-hearted father. One could dismiss it as a casting gimmick, but the role fits him oddly well, as does the show itself. It’s set in 1962, when that decade’s turmoil was just beginning to bump up against the chaste chipperness of the 1950s, an era often represented by a certain television show that, at the time, was in its fifth and next-to-last season.
Wilbur Turnblad is not exactly Jean Valjean, but it’s not a chump role, either; Dick Latessa won a Tony for featured actor in 2003 for playing the part. Mr. Mathers says he is both confident and a little terrified.
“I’m fine with the acting,” he said. “But that dancing.”
The Broadway idea was cooked up by his agent, who tossed it to the “Hairspray” people without Mr. Mathers’s knowledge.
Matt Lenz, the show’s associate director, said, “It was one of those ideas that, as soon as it was it was floated, everyone was intrigued.”
After a successful audition in December Mr. Mathers was set up with dance and vocal coaches who worked with him in Los Angeles, where he lives. At a rehearsal on Friday, his first with his Broadway co-stars, his moves were a little tentative. But he had them down, and his lines were greeted with laughter and applause by cast members watching from the orchestra.
“The Beaver had this kind of clueless look and you can still see that,” said Tevin Campbell, who plays Seaweed in the show. “That’s why it’s so funny. But he’s good. He’s got it.”
Lately Mr. Mathers has been spending much of his time making appearances, sometimes as a spokesman for diabetes treatment (he was found to have diabetes in the early 1990s) and sometimes simply as the actor formerly known as the Beaver.
He talks about how television has changed in the 50 years since the debut of “Beaver,” how children are being exposed to sexuality too early, and how parents should be involved in what their children are watching. That’s not to say, he assured, that “Leave it to Beaver” was the mainstay of innocence it is sometimes painted as.
“You know, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ was the first show to show a toilet on TV,” he said proudly, describing the episode in which Wally and the Beav adopt a pet alligator.
At some point it had to be asked: Has it ever bothered Mr. Mathers that he reached the pinnacle of his career — in his words — before he turned 16?
He looked as if he didn’t even understand the question.
“Honestly, by the time I was 13, I was a self-made millionaire,” he said.
Mr. Mathers went to high school, joined the Air National Guard, graduated from Berkeley and started a career in banking and, later, real estate. He was not, as was widely reported, killed in Vietnam, though Tony Dow, a k a Beaver’s big brother, Wally, sent flowers to the Mathers family upon hearing the news.
One day in the late 1970s Mr. Dow asked Mr. Mathers if he wanted to join him in a production of “Boeing Boeing,” a ’60s farce, at a dinner theater in Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Mathers said he initially saw it as a way to bring a higher profile to his real estate business.
But the stint was so successful they followed it up with another show, “So Long, Stanley,” which toured the country. He returned to California to become the host of a radio show for a couple of years. (In a quirk laden with cultural resonance, Mr. Mathers was the emergency replacement for Timothy Leary, who tended to repel listeners.)
The ’80s was a decade of nostalgia for the Beaver era, and Mr. Mathers spent it working on the television movie, “Still the Beaver,” and the ensuing series, “The New Leave It to Beaver.” It was a period of intense work, he said, which ended with the breakup of his second marriage.
Since then Mr. Mathers has spent his time raising his children — all now in their 20s — making his talks and doing the occasional acting job. The discovery in the mid-’80s that he owned a piece of the grosses from all “Beaver”-related merchandise certainly helped pad things a bit.
“I definitely have had a blessed life,” he said.
Almost no one from the “Leave it to Beaver” gang, Mr. Mathers said, has had reservations about sailing in the wake of the show (though Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell and later became a Los Angeles police officer, did spend quite a bit of money, Mr. Mathers said, trying to prevent a porn star from claiming that he had played Eddie Haskell).
Frank Bank, who played Clarence (Lumpy) Rutherford, seconded Mr. Mathers in saying that “Leave it to Beaver” was only good fortune. He even wrote a book, “Call Me Lumpy,” detailing, among other things, his copious sexual exploits in the years following the show.
Mr. Bank is now Mr. Mathers’s investment adviser (“Vietnam and Malaysia are hot,” he said in a phone interview) and his closest friend from the old days. He and Mr. Mathers had talked about the Broadway venture.
“I had to laugh,” Mr. Bank said. “I said, ‘Let me get this straight: You can’t dance and you can’t sing.’ But then I said, ‘You know what?’ ” What Mr. Bank said next isn’t printable but it comes down to this: He believes Mr. Mathers will do a very good job.
Only Mr. Dow occasionally balked at drawing attention to his “Beaver” fame, Mr. Mathers said, worried that it might interfere with his career as a successful producer and director.
The girlfriend arrived: Teresa Modnick, the community relations director for the Center for Healthy Aging, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit.
They have been going out for two years, after being set up on a date by their sisters. Ms. Modnick talked about Mr. Mathers as a kind-hearted and generous man, no different than if he were a kind-hearted and generous man who sold aluminum siding for a living. She seemed unfazed that strangers at restaurants often approach to introduce themselves to the Beav.
“I can go anywhere in the world, and people know me,” Mr. Mathers said, still seemingly amazed at the life that was set out for him when he was 9 years old. “In Japan the show’s called ‘The Happy Boy and His Family.’ So I’ll be walking through the airport in Japan, and people will come up and say, ‘Hi, happy boy!’ ”
June 5, 2007
And Jerry Mathers as ... Tracy Turnblad’s Father?
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
It shouldn’t have seemed weird, but it did: Jerry Mathers, also known as TV’s Beaver, having just polished off a 16-ounce steak at the Palm, picked up his cellphone and called his girlfriend, asking her to come over for dessert.
Mr. Mathers has as much right to grow up as anyone of course, and he has: two divorces, three children, a stock portfolio and, this past Saturday, a 59th birthday.
But it’s hard to look past that half owlish, half doughy face and that keenly sincere manner: A girlfriend? A cellphone? What would Gus the fireman say?
Tonight Mr. Mathers will make his Broadway debut in “Hairspray,” playing Wilbur Turnblad, Tracy Turnblad’s goofy and good-hearted father. One could dismiss it as a casting gimmick, but the role fits him oddly well, as does the show itself. It’s set in 1962, when that decade’s turmoil was just beginning to bump up against the chaste chipperness of the 1950s, an era often represented by a certain television show that, at the time, was in its fifth and next-to-last season.
Wilbur Turnblad is not exactly Jean Valjean, but it’s not a chump role, either; Dick Latessa won a Tony for featured actor in 2003 for playing the part. Mr. Mathers says he is both confident and a little terrified.
“I’m fine with the acting,” he said. “But that dancing.”
The Broadway idea was cooked up by his agent, who tossed it to the “Hairspray” people without Mr. Mathers’s knowledge.
Matt Lenz, the show’s associate director, said, “It was one of those ideas that, as soon as it was it was floated, everyone was intrigued.”
After a successful audition in December Mr. Mathers was set up with dance and vocal coaches who worked with him in Los Angeles, where he lives. At a rehearsal on Friday, his first with his Broadway co-stars, his moves were a little tentative. But he had them down, and his lines were greeted with laughter and applause by cast members watching from the orchestra.
“The Beaver had this kind of clueless look and you can still see that,” said Tevin Campbell, who plays Seaweed in the show. “That’s why it’s so funny. But he’s good. He’s got it.”
Lately Mr. Mathers has been spending much of his time making appearances, sometimes as a spokesman for diabetes treatment (he was found to have diabetes in the early 1990s) and sometimes simply as the actor formerly known as the Beaver.
He talks about how television has changed in the 50 years since the debut of “Beaver,” how children are being exposed to sexuality too early, and how parents should be involved in what their children are watching. That’s not to say, he assured, that “Leave it to Beaver” was the mainstay of innocence it is sometimes painted as.
“You know, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ was the first show to show a toilet on TV,” he said proudly, describing the episode in which Wally and the Beav adopt a pet alligator.
At some point it had to be asked: Has it ever bothered Mr. Mathers that he reached the pinnacle of his career — in his words — before he turned 16?
He looked as if he didn’t even understand the question.
“Honestly, by the time I was 13, I was a self-made millionaire,” he said.
Mr. Mathers went to high school, joined the Air National Guard, graduated from Berkeley and started a career in banking and, later, real estate. He was not, as was widely reported, killed in Vietnam, though Tony Dow, a k a Beaver’s big brother, Wally, sent flowers to the Mathers family upon hearing the news.
One day in the late 1970s Mr. Dow asked Mr. Mathers if he wanted to join him in a production of “Boeing Boeing,” a ’60s farce, at a dinner theater in Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Mathers said he initially saw it as a way to bring a higher profile to his real estate business.
But the stint was so successful they followed it up with another show, “So Long, Stanley,” which toured the country. He returned to California to become the host of a radio show for a couple of years. (In a quirk laden with cultural resonance, Mr. Mathers was the emergency replacement for Timothy Leary, who tended to repel listeners.)
The ’80s was a decade of nostalgia for the Beaver era, and Mr. Mathers spent it working on the television movie, “Still the Beaver,” and the ensuing series, “The New Leave It to Beaver.” It was a period of intense work, he said, which ended with the breakup of his second marriage.
Since then Mr. Mathers has spent his time raising his children — all now in their 20s — making his talks and doing the occasional acting job. The discovery in the mid-’80s that he owned a piece of the grosses from all “Beaver”-related merchandise certainly helped pad things a bit.
“I definitely have had a blessed life,” he said.
Almost no one from the “Leave it to Beaver” gang, Mr. Mathers said, has had reservations about sailing in the wake of the show (though Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell and later became a Los Angeles police officer, did spend quite a bit of money, Mr. Mathers said, trying to prevent a porn star from claiming that he had played Eddie Haskell).
Frank Bank, who played Clarence (Lumpy) Rutherford, seconded Mr. Mathers in saying that “Leave it to Beaver” was only good fortune. He even wrote a book, “Call Me Lumpy,” detailing, among other things, his copious sexual exploits in the years following the show.
Mr. Bank is now Mr. Mathers’s investment adviser (“Vietnam and Malaysia are hot,” he said in a phone interview) and his closest friend from the old days. He and Mr. Mathers had talked about the Broadway venture.
“I had to laugh,” Mr. Bank said. “I said, ‘Let me get this straight: You can’t dance and you can’t sing.’ But then I said, ‘You know what?’ ” What Mr. Bank said next isn’t printable but it comes down to this: He believes Mr. Mathers will do a very good job.
Only Mr. Dow occasionally balked at drawing attention to his “Beaver” fame, Mr. Mathers said, worried that it might interfere with his career as a successful producer and director.
The girlfriend arrived: Teresa Modnick, the community relations director for the Center for Healthy Aging, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit.
They have been going out for two years, after being set up on a date by their sisters. Ms. Modnick talked about Mr. Mathers as a kind-hearted and generous man, no different than if he were a kind-hearted and generous man who sold aluminum siding for a living. She seemed unfazed that strangers at restaurants often approach to introduce themselves to the Beav.
“I can go anywhere in the world, and people know me,” Mr. Mathers said, still seemingly amazed at the life that was set out for him when he was 9 years old. “In Japan the show’s called ‘The Happy Boy and His Family.’ So I’ll be walking through the airport in Japan, and people will come up and say, ‘Hi, happy boy!’ ”