| Jerry Mathers  Born: 2-Jun-1948
Birthplace: Sioux City, IA
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Beaver in Leave it to Beaver Military service: Air National Guard (1966-69) Jerry Mathers played Theodore Cleaver, "the Beav", on Leave It to Beaver. He was seven years old when the program began, but already an established actor, having previously played Shirley MacLaine's son in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, Dan Duryea's son in This is My Love, and Bob Hope's son in The Seven Little Foys.
When Leave It to Beaver ended, Mathers dropped out of show business and went on to high school, where he tried to fit in as a normal kid, playing sports and dating girls. Within a few years, America was involved in a bloody war in Vietnam, and Mathers was widely rumored to have been a combat casualty. In reality, he tried to enlist in the Marines, but was rejected on account of his celebrity -- officers feared the inevitable negative repercussions if such an icon of innocence was killed in the war. Instead, Mathers served stateside in the Air National Guard, where he safely survived the 60s. After that he worked as a loan officer in a bank, leaving hundreds of people with the odd experience of having their loan applications rejected or accepted by the Beaver.
In the late 1970s, Mathers and his Beaver brother Tony Dow started touring together in dinner plays. In 1983, the cast of Leave It to Beaver, sans the late Hugh Beaumont, made a TV movie called Still the Beaver, which was followed by several years of The New Leave It to Beaver.
In more recent low-budget films, Mathers played a cop in Sexual Malice,
a skanky erotic thriller starring Edward Albert, and taught biology in the high school crime caper Better Luck Tomorrow. His autobiography is titled And Jerry Mathers As The Beaver.
At last word, Mathers was working as spokesman for the National Psoriasis Foundation. "Living with psoriasis is no picnic," he says. "When you're covered with flaky, scaly, unsightly skin, it's difficult to live comfortably. People think it's contagious and they shun you, which can be humiliating. I want people to know that psoriasis isn't contagious and that new treatments are just around the corner for those of us with this serious disease." Father: Norm Mathers (school district executive Los Angeles)
Sister: Susie Mathers McSweeney (b. 1951)
Brother: Jimmy Mathers (b. 1955)
Wife: Rhonda Mathers (div.)
Daughter: Grethen Mathers
Daughter: Mercy Mathers
Son: Noah Mathers (sound technician, b. 23-Jan-1978)
High School: Notre Dame High School, Sherman Oaks, CA
University: BA Philosophy, UC Berkeley (1974)
Risk Factors: Diabetes, Obesity, Psoriasis
TELEVISION
Leave It to Beaver Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (1957-63)
Still the Beaver Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (1985-89)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (24-Mar-2006) Himself
Better Luck Tomorrow (12-Jan-2002)
Sexual Malice (1994)
Back to the Beach (7-Aug-1987)
The Girl, the Gold Watch, & Dynamite (25-May-1981)
The Shadow on the Window (6-Mar-1957)
The Trouble with Harry (3-Oct-1955)
The Seven Little Foys (31-May-1955)
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