Nearly 60 years after his hit series Leave It to Beaver came to an end, Jerry Mathers reflects on the friendships he made on the classic TV shows’ set.
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During an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Mathers spoke about being close with his cast and the show’s crew all the way until the series came to an end.
“It was a huge party on our soundstage,” Jerry said about the series-ending party. “We were on the living room set and all of the actors, writers, and writers’ assistants came. Even people who hadn’t been on the show in a while came in and out. We were all friends, but we knew we were probably not going to see each other that much again.”
Jerry Mathers then said that he realized later on how nice it was to have that many friends on the show’s set. However, he knew the cast was ready to move on. “We’d loved doing the show for that many years,” he continued. “But I was going into high school and Tony [Dow] was going into college.”
The former child actor also said that the show had achieved 234 episodes during its run. “We knew that sooner or later people were going to get a little tired of us, so it was time for us to go out and do other things.”
Meanwhile, Mathers was able to use his Leave It to Beaver stardom for other ventures. “I was very good at real estate,” he said. “People liked having the Beaver as their realtor. I was a million dollar salesperson – but that also wasn’t very hard in Los Angeles, because houses here are very expensive.”
‘Leave It to Beaver’ Star Jerry Mathers Says He Still Gets Recognized As ‘Beaver’
Along with chatting about his time on the Leave It to Beaver set, Jerry Mathers shared how people still recognize him as Beaver from the show.
“I’m used to people seeing me on the street, and saying, ‘Oh, it’s the Beaver!’” Mathers shared. “When I was a kid, I’d always say, ‘I’m Jerry Mathers – that’s just the name they gave me on the show.’”
Mathers also talked about reprising his Beaver role over the years on various spinoffs. He shared that he’d happily play “Grandpa Beaver” if a network or streaming service decided to make a new show. “I’d want to read the script first,” Jerry disclosed. “But as long as it stuck with the same morals and things that we did on the original shows, I’d be happy to do it.”
Jerry Mathers went on to add that cast members from the sequel series, are still alive. So he believes that it would be fun to go back and see all of them again.
