Jack and Jill
Leave It To Jerry
by Maurine Myers Remenih, Jack and Jill, October 1961
This is Jerry Mathers, better known as "Beaver", or "The Beav." Every Saturday night from 8:30 to 9:00 (E.S.T.) on ABC-TV’s "Leave It To Beaver" show, Jerry officially becomes "Beaver" to many fans.
Off the screen it’s a little hard to decide whether he’s really Jerry or Beaver. Even his friends can’t tell you. Perhaps Jerry does not always know. Mrs. Mathers thinks that’s because he’s so much like himself on the screen. Jerry doesn’t act, he just is.
Jerry got into the television world the same way many other children do, through modeling. He began as an infant model for the advertising department of a store. Before his mother knew what was happening, Jerry was one of the busiest little models in town. Then he began to work in movies, and he finally auditioned for the role of Beaver.
Bob Mosher, who produces the show with Joe Connelly, remembers the day Jerry appeared to audition for the part. There were nearly 100 boys auditioning. Some of them even had their hair curled!
Jerry had his Cub Scout uniform on. When it was his turn to talk to Mr. Mosher, he seemed very fidgety. Finally Mr. Mosher asked if something were bothering him.
"Aw, gee, I want to get to my Cub Scout meeting before it is over!" Jerry answered.
Mr. Mosher decide right then that Jerry was the one to play Beaver.
At the studio where "leave It To Beaver" is filmed, Jerry has a busy day. He leaves home at 6:30 a.m., and doesn’t leave the studio until 6:45 in the evening. Of course, Jerry still has to go to school. He does that for three hours a day right on the set. He and Tony Dow (who plays his "big brother" on the show), and the other boys and girls appearing in the series, share a little classroom built into one corner of the huge sound stage. Right now, for his science class, Jerry is making some interesting discoveries about how plants grow. A long table at one end of the classroom is covered with sprouting sweet potatoes, sprouting peanuts, sprouting all-sorts-of-things.
At lunchtime, Jerry eats in the busy commissary of the TV studio. Despite all the delicious and fancy dishes on the menu, Jerry has the same thing every day. The waitress knows what to bring him without even asking. The Beaver always had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk!
When he isn’t going to school, or playing Beaver, Jerry is often at the basketball hoop which one of the crew put up in a corner of the studio. Jerry and Tony, along with other athletic members of the crew, have a running competition to see who shoots the most baskets. Many times Tony acts as though he really were Jerry’s big brother, and shows him the find points of basketball.
Jerry’s parents are having an area near their back-yard swimming pool paved to make a badminton and basketball court for Jerry and his friends. The paving may be extended to provide some hopscotch markings for Jerry’s sister, Susie, 10, and a shuffleboard for his brother, Jimmie, 7.
If he isn’t shooting for baskets, Jerry may be playing tricks on his TV parents, Hugh Beaumont and Barbara Billingsley, or perhaps on his director, Norman Tokar. He’s a steady customer at the trick and magic shop near his home, and people at the studio never know what he’s going to do next.
"Last week I had one of those buzzers you hid in the palm of your hand," Jerry said, laughing.
Jerry is a real hobby-bug. Him mother says the model industry people don’t bring out new models fast enough to suit Jerry. He buys them as soon as they show up in the hobby shop. He has built the big motorized model of the Curtiss Pusher, and the visible V-8 engine, and "The thinking Man," a life sized model of the human skull. He has stopped counting the number of model cars, boats, planes, and tanks he has built.
Another enthusiasm brought an avalanche of rocks into Beaver’s house. He become a rock hound. Whenever he had an interview with someone, he was very careful to mention his rock collection. Then he added, as politely as possible, "If you come across any nice rocks back around where you live, I sure would appreciate it if you would send me some of them."
These people did send him some rocks, and they said that Jerry liked rocks in the stories they wrote about him.
A lot of the boys and girls who watched him on television sent him rocks, too. The mail carrier who brought the Matheres’ packages got very tired carrying rocks up to their front door.
What does Jerry thin of being a television star? He shrugs off his of acting as "nothing much." But there are many people who disagree with him. In 1959, he won the Mars Gold Star Award as the year’s best male child actor. The state of Oregon, called the "Beaver State," made Jerry an honorary citizen for his work in 1959. About a year ago, he went to Washington, D.C. to accept a Treasury Aware on behalf of the "Beaver" show, and in 1960, the "Leave It To Beaver" show won a Christopher Award.
That’s something very special to Beaver’s friends and fans.
