Tony Dow, 'Go away it to Beaver' star, useless at 77

“It’s with a particularly heavy coronary heart that we share with you the passing of our beloved Tony this morning,” Frank Bilotta and Renee James, Dow’s managers, introduced in an announcement. “Tony was a good looking soul – type, compassionate, humorous and humble. It was really a pleasure to simply be round him. His light voice and unpretentious method was instantly comforting and you might not assist however love him.

No explanation for loss of life was shared, however Dow revealed in Could that he had been recognized with most cancers.

Dow was thrust into stardom at age 12, when he was solid on the soon-to-be-smash sitcom “Go away It to Beaver.” Within the function, Dow helped create the archetype of a suburban nuclear household and have become a family identify to tens of millions of viewers. The present ran from 1957 to 1963.

“There went my life,” he mentioned.

Wally Cleaver, the straight-arrow teenage son, star athlete and Boy Scout, grew to become inextricably tied to Dow, who mentioned he struggled to face on his personal.

“It is unhappy to be well-known at 12 years previous or one thing, and then you definitely develop up and turn out to be an actual individual, and nothing’s occurred for you,” he informed CBS.

Dow, who mentioned he skilled undiagnosed despair from age 20 to age 40, spoke out for many years about his psychological well being challenges, lengthy earlier than it was widespread for celebrities to reveal that data publicly. In 1993, he was an honorary speaker at a conference for the Nationwide Depressive and Manic-Depressive Affiliation.

“I notice there is a perceived irony about this,” he informed the Baltimore Solar of his despair in 1993. “You already know, the truth that I used to be in a TV program that epitomized the supposed supreme world of the ’50s, and right here I am affected by despair. However I am simply certainly one of tens of millions.”

Dow informed CBS that when he accepted his analysis and started therapy, he discovered hope. He channeled that hope into artwork, too, sculpting ornate items at his house studio.

“I believe individuals ought to take the leap of religion that they will really feel higher,” he mentioned.

Dow continued to work in Hollywood, taking components in TV sequence and even reprising his function in “The New Go away It to Beaver” within the Nineteen Eighties. He additionally directed episodes of sequence like “Harry and the Hendersons,” “Coach” and “Star Trek: Deep House 9.”

Jerry Mathers, who starred reverse Dow as Beaver on their hit sitcom, informed followers earlier this month that he’d been involved with Dow, whose managers mentioned had been “out and in of the hospital with varied issues and coverings.”

Bilotta and James, Dow’s administration staff, thanked their consumer for his work, “for the reflections of an easier time, the laughter, the friendship and for the sensation that you simply had been an enormous brother to us all.”