TV Confidential
TV Guide, July 25th, 1998. Urban Legends Article
Beaver (Jerry Mathers) died in Vietnam...
This myth was put to rest clearly enough when Mathers and Tony Dow returned to the screen on CBS's 1983 reunion movie Still the Beaver. But how did it get started? Mathers addressed the question at a 1996 symposium in Los Angeles, where he explained that he had spent six years in the Air National Guard and was seen on TV in uniform presenting an Emmy to Gene Kelly in 1967 (left). then, Mathers said, one day in 1969, someone with a similar name was reported killed in the war, and both the AP and UPI wire services made the mistake of identifying the person as the former start of leave It To Beaver. "(the wire services each) said they picked it up form the other one." Mathers said. After reading it in the papers, actress Shelly Winters then repeated the false news during her December 22, 1969, appearance on Johnny Carson's tonight Show. "I've always felt terrible about saying that," Winter admits now.
...And Eddie Haskell became porn start Johnny Holmes.
It seemed natural that Eddie Haskell would mutate into something unsavory, but Ken Osmond, who played Eddie, in fact become a cop, serving 18 years with the Los Angeles Police Department. The rumor, says Osmond, 55, who no laughing matter when his bosses and members of his church began to suspect it might be true. It started because there was some facial resemblance between the two men, which porn distributors exploited by using the name Eddie Haskell in advertising Holme's films. "It was a pain in my butt for 11 years," says Osmond, who brought a defamation suit against porn houses, producers and distributors. He lost the suit and never got a penny.
