The New York Times has reported that the statement Dow’s representatives released to Facebook was inaccurate and he’s still alive. Along with the Facebook post,
The family’s most recent Facebook message, from his son Christopher Dow, reads, “This is a difficult time. Dad is at home, under hospice care, and in his last hours. My wife and I are by his facet along with many buddies which have visited. He has a fighting heart.”
Tony Dow, the actor and director best known for playing the stalwart older brother Wally Cleaver to Jerry Mathers’ Beaver in the iconic series “Leave It to Beaver,” has died. He was 77.
His official Facebook page posted that he died Tuesday morning. “It is with an extremely heavy heart that we share with you the passing of our beloved Tony this morning. Tony was an attractive soul – form, compassionate, fu,nny, and humble,” learn the message from his management staff.
Dow and his wife Lauren announced in May that his most cancers, which he had been identified with years before, had returned.
Mathers remembered Dow on Facebook, writing “He was not solely my brother on TV but in some ways in life as properly. Tony leaves an empty place in my heart that won’t be filled. He was all the time the kindest, most generous, light, loving, sincere, and humble man, and it was my honor and privilege to have the ability to share reminiscences along with him for 65 years.”
Dow was born in Hollywood and his mother was an early stunt girl and double for Clara Bow. He was a Junior Olympics diving champion but didn’t have much showbiz expertise when he tagged together with a buddy and ended up auditioning for and profitable the function of Wally. “Leave it to Beaver” started airing in 1957 and ran till 1963. The popular black-and-white sitcom, centered around the typical idealized household of the time, adopted the adventures of mischievous younger Beaver, his sensible brother Wally, their devious buddy Eddie Haskell, and their long-suffering however understanding parents played by Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont.
The show’s writers, Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly, based the characters on their own kids, incorporating such particulars as Wally’s fixed hair-combing they noticed in their very own youngsters. Because the present got here to an end, Wally was about to begin school whereas Beaver was prepared for high school.
Dow returned within the 1980s for the TV film “Still the Beaver” and series “The New Depart It to Beaver,” for which he additionally directed 5 episodes and wrote one.
He moved into writing, producing,, and directing while continuing to act, and helmed a number of episodes of “Harry and the Hendersons,” “Coach,” “Babylon 5,” “Honey I Shrunk the Children” and an episode of “Star Trek: Deep Space 9.”
After “Depart It to Beaver,” Dow appeared in sequence including “General Hospital,” “Mr. Novak,” “Never Too Younger,” “Lassie,” “Love, American Model,” “Sq. Pegs” and “The Love Boat,” on which he played himself. He also played himself within the 2003 comedy “Dickie Roberts: Former Baby Star,” which featured cameos of dozens of former young actors, and appeared in the John Landis skit comedy feature “The Kentucky Fried Movie.”
Dow battled depression in his 20s, making the self-help video “Beating the Blues” to assist others, and later survived two bouts of cancer. He also became a sculptor and began a construction firm.
He’s survived by his wife Lauren and two children.