“I definitely have had a blessed life.”

Catching up with the Beaver, Jerry Mathers, who at 69 is about to debut in the Broadway production of Hairspray.

"Mr. Mathers went to high school, joined the Air National Guard, graduated from Berkeley and started a career in banking and, later, real estate. He was not, as was widely reported, killed in Vietnam, though Tony Dow, a k a Beaver’s big brother, Wally, sent flowers to the Mathers family upon hearing the news.

One day in the late 1970s Mr. Dow asked Mr. Mathers if he wanted to join him in a production of “Boeing Boeing,” a ’60s farce, at a dinner theater in Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Mathers said he initially saw it as a way to bring a higher profile to his real estate business.

But the stint was so successful they followed it up with another show, “So Long, Stanley,” which toured the country. He returned to California to become the host of a radio show for a couple of years. (In a quirk laden with cultural resonance, Mr. Mathers was the emergency replacement for Timothy Leary, who tended to repel listeners.) Via the NY Times

True to the spirit of the show, the child stars of “Beaver” grew up to be responsible, mostly trouble free adults. We met the man who played Eddie Haskel a few years ago, who by then was a retired Los Angeles Police Officer.

Even Lumpy turned out OK.

“Frank Bank, who played Clarence (Lumpy) Rutherford, seconded Mr. Mathers in saying that “Leave it to Beaver” was only good fortune. He even wrote a book, “Call Me Lumpy,” detailing, among other things, his copious sexual exploits in the years following the show. Mr. Bank is now Mr. Mathers’s investment adviser.”