Leave It To Beaver Star Tony Dow Reportedly Still Alive, Despite Initial Reports of His Death

Earlier today came word that star Tony Dow, best known for playing Wally Cleaver on the beloved sitcom Leave it to Beaver, had passed away after being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. The news of Dow’s death was revealed on his Official Facebook Page, where they wrote that he passed away this morning. In the wake of that post however it has been revealed that Dow has not actually passed away. TMZ brings word that the post has now been deleted and that Dow’s management confirms he’s still alive. CBS News brings word directly from Dow’s wife Lauren Dow, that the actor is still alive for the time being.

“This is a difficult time,” Christopher Dow, his son, said in a statement to Fox News. “Yes, he is still alive, but in his last hours; under hospice care.” It was announced back in May that Dow, a renowned director and actor on television, had been diagnosed with cancer.

Dow appeared in all 234 episodes of the classic sitcom. His directing work includes episodes of Babylon 5, the original Swamp Thing show on USA Network, Star Trek, and the TV spinoffs of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Harry and the Hendersons. His visual effects work reached as far as Doctor Who. Dow’s Star Trek episode was Deep Space Nine‘s “Field of Fire.”

“I was gonna have to live with it for the rest of my life,” Dow said previously in an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning about his forever association with his work on the series. “I thought: This isn’t fair. You know? I mean, I’d like to do some other stuff. I’d like to do some interesting stuff. You know, it’s sad to be famous at 12-years-old or something, and then you grow up and become a real person, and nothing’s happening for you…From the time I was 11 or 12, I was being told what to do. I was told on the set. I was told at home. I didn’t have control of my life.”

As an actor, Dow appeared in a wide variety of TV roles between 1957 and 2016, from Adam-12 and General Hospital to Diagnosis Murder and Freddy’s Nightmares. His most recent acting role was on a 2014 reinvention of the long-running radio series Suspense.

(Cover Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images)