Doug Brendel from the Official Leave it to Beaver Facebook Group with Rusty Stevens gave me permission to post here info that Rusty provided him for his Facebook group. This is information that I did not have room for in my book. As you can see by the length of this post, I would have to rename my book, from “The World Famous Beaverpedia” to “The World Famous Larrypedia,” which actually sounds like a great book title.
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Great information below about working under contract from Robert “Rusty Stevens
“It seems we are approaching (at least for this cycle) the end of the LITB episodes that include the Larry Mondello character. I’ve noticed that this has produced a smattering of comments and questions about my “untimely” (and unexplained) exit. And I think this group deserves to hear a “from the horse’s mouth” explanation. I never dreamed at that time that my leaving the show would become the stuff of urban legend. But it pretty much did. Crazy stories about me hiding out, people posing as me…all kinds of nutty stuff.
Let me start with a few of the stories that have been put out there. There is one that I only came across since I have been following this group. It showed a podcast of an interview with Jerry Mathers, in which he said that I left the show after I was in the movie, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” because me and my family thought I was going to become more successful in Theatrical films. I am sure Jerry only said this because he heard it somewhere else. However, it’s just kind of ridiculous. I was a nine year old kid with a small part along with other kids, and although it was an honor to be in such an iconic film, we certainly didn’t think I was going to become a movie star. Plus I was in the show for two more years after the movie.
Another story that did have some truth to it was that my father was transferred out of state. He wasn’t actually transferred and it didn’t happen until a few years after I left the show. But my parents had started thinking about moving back east which is where they came from. Please notice that I said “after I left the show.” Many people refer to my exit as being “written out of the show,” which is not accurate. I will address that shortly.
The other story that has been widely reported apparently came from Barbara Billingsley. I know Barbara has a lot of fans here, and I in no way mean to speak ill of her. However, Barbara’s contention that my mother was the worse kind of “stage mother” and was a “terror” (I believe that’s the actual word she used) on the set was totally untrue. First of all, my younger brother was about four years old at the time and other than when he was in childcare, my mother didn’t even come to the set. They paid a relative of ours to accompany me the studio and also the sister of a next door neighbor. And I seriously doubt that either of those two ladies was a terror on the set. A couple of months ago there was an episode in which June says to one of the boys, “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” The irony of that statement by her did not escape me. I must add here that I absolutely do not believe that Barbara Billingsley just made this story up. I’m sure that somebody told her about this. But I got along great with her and she was always very nice to me and as far as I ever saw, also got along with my mother when she was there. It just kind of disappoints me that she would feel it necessary to put out such a story which whether true or not would be embarrassing to me and my family.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts unrelated to this subject, my mother actually became friendly off the set with some of the other mothers. Jeri Weil’s (Judy Hensler) mother and my mom became friendly and the same for Karen Sue Trent’s (Penny) mother. We even went to their house for horseback riding. She also became friendly with the mother of Patty Ann Gerrity, who played one of the kids in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Not that it’s unusual for the mothers of child actors to become friendly; I only bring this up to show that my mom was no more, or less, a stage mother than most mothers.
Having said that, let me add that my mother was by no means a shy person. I was not privy to all the things that went down between my mother and my agent, and the producers. That sort of leads me into the next section of this (long-winded “memoir.”) I have told you the things that were not true. Let me now address the real reasons I left the show.
My early episodes on the show, were not always every week and my part would be very small. So I might only have to go in one day for shooting in a particular week. And although I had to attend 3 hours of school on the set, I obviously was not in class at my regular school. As the episodes I was in increased and my parts in those episodes got bigger, I was out of my regular school more and more. I was fortunate in that it did not have a negative effect in an academic sense. However, I believe there were other consequences that were beginning to occur. Namely, the social networks that naturally develop in school were beginning to not happen for me as a result of my going back and forth between the studio and regular school. I’m sure it was very subtle and not something that looked to be a major problem because I really enjoyed what I did at the studio. Also, our neighborhood had a very tight-knit group of kids. Although I could still do things with them, things were changing a little. I doubt that at this point my parents noticed anything relating to this, because it was only starting to dawn on me and I kept things pretty close to the chest even in those days.
At some point in 1958, I got the part of one of the “no necked monsters” (as Elizabeth Taylor’s character called us) in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In my opinion, this caused a lot of changes. Without bragging, I can say that my Larry Mondello character was getting more and more popular on the show and we were getting a surprising amount fan mail. Well, just prior to beginning production on “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Liz Taylor’s husband, Mike Todd, was tragically killed in an airplane crash. This naturally delayed production and since we as the kids were under contract for the movie, we had to be available. I don’t remember the exact extent of it but it pretty much precluded doing any Beaver shows. Since as I said, Larry Mondello was getting more and more popular, the producers were not too crazy about having to write scripts without me. (Again, no conceit intended.)
After I again became available for LITB the Producers wanted to make sure that they had more control and so they put me under contract. This was a great thing for all the reasons you can imagine: money, prestige, etc. As far as I know, at that time I was the only non-Cleaver under contract. I assume that Ken Osmond and possibly Frank Bank were put under contract as time went by and more Wally-centric episodes were written.
Now keep in mind, up until this point I’m still going back and forth between Studio schools at MGM, for “Cat” and Universal for Beaver. So when I went under contract, now I’m going to be attending school on the set everyday. Plus I began to take part in the whole 5 day process of each episode: The “Reading” on Monday; rehearsals on Tuesday; and shooting on Wednesday Thursday and Friday, [I want to mention here that I especially enjoyed the Monday Readings. They were very laid back. We sat around a table and read our lines and got a feel for the episode for the first time. For characters that were not there, which was most of the non-principals, somebody else like the director or assistant director would say the lines. It was really neat when you said your line you got a laugh from the whole table]
What I did not realize at the time was that I was becoming even more estranged from friends because I was at the studio all the time. I know that Jerry and Tony did that day in and day out for 6 years and it didn’t seem to bother them. The same goes for other successful child actors. I can only say how I felt in that position. All my friends we’re starting to get interested in girls and there were dances and parties that kids were going to. Yes, of course I could have gone do these different things but since I was not going to school with them I did not feel like I was part of the group. Ironically, if I had played up the Beaver thing more I probably could have been the most popular kid in town. LOL But again that’s not who I was.
Gradually, I started letting my parents know how I felt. And I guess they began to see some negative effects on me. Eventually, I was flat-out telling them that I didn’t want to do the show anymore. And this is from a young boy who had loved acting in the series. So my parents had to do what they felt was necessary to get me out of the contract. Perhaps this is where Barbara Billingsley or someone else thought my mother was being a terrible stage mother. If being a stage mother means looking out for the best interests of your child, I’m sure my mother would have proudly worn that title.
Over the next couple years I did do some other TV shows here and there but they did not consume my time like LITB had done. Eventually we did move to Philly in early 1963. I can’t say I regret that because I would not have my wife and daughter if we didn’t make the move. In watching the shows again over the last several months i’m glad to say it only brings back very good memories. But let me confess one thing: The first time I saw another kid at the desk behind Judy Hensler, it brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat”