The project also was tripped up by the technology of the day. “It was a great concept,” Dow says, but ahead of its time in raising environmental concerns. The adult role did not go to Dow's friend, rather to acting veteran Paul Langton, best known for a later role on "Peyton Place."
#WALLY LEAVE IT TO BEAVER TV#
"Johnny Wildlife" would have changed everything for young Dow.īy April 1957, when he turned 12, Dow had been cast as the son of a wildlife photographer and shot the color pilot show in a still predominantly black-and-white TV era. Future Olympians Patsy Willard and Jeanne Collier were in the senior women's field.Īcting came into the picture, not because of his mother but when an older lifeguard friend from the Hollywood Athletic Club auditioned for the lead role of a show called "Johnny Wildlife," bringing Dow along because there was some resemblance between them. He was a diving champion up to the Junior Olympic level before and during the "Leave It to Beaver" years, winning a boys 14-under 1-meter title at a meet in Phoenix in 1958 at the famed Dick Smith Swim School. I'm perfectly happy making sculpture and living where we live." Prelude: Johnny Wildlife "I learned it's OK for me to not be assertive, especially now. "I always thought if you're going to do something, do it better than anybody else can do it, even if it's sweeping up the broom closet. "I've learned to take things less seriously," Dow says. But lessons from the show and his teenage years stuck with him, through struggles with depression and two different cancer scares. Since 1963, when the show ended its six-season run, Dow has lived a life in multiple acts, including as a director and as a sculptor.
#WALLY LEAVE IT TO BEAVER SERIES#
(He was "Beaver," as we learned in the series finale, because 5-year-old Wally could not say Theodore.) It’s not just typecasting as the elder Cleaver son that created ambiguity for Dow, who grew from eighth to 12th grade on the show and served as a buffer between his earnest parents and his younger brother.
"I think it’s amazing they did that show 60 years ago and it’s still relevant,” he says. "And I was a little angry that when I’d go after parts, a lot of the times I wouldn’t get them because I was too identified with the Wally character."īut any latent rebelliousness comes with the recognition that those involved with the series produced something special in the fictional town of Mayfield.
I was not unappreciative, but I was always a little rebellious. “It’s nice to be remembered any way you can, so I have accomplished that,” Dow says.
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