As hospitals around the world are experiencing an increase in patients due to a surge in COVID-19-related cases, Leave it To Beaver star Tony Dow has been admitted to a New York hospital with pneumonia. While Dow himself is COVID-negative, the number of beds being taken up by patients suffering from the Delta variant of COVID-19 apparently forced him to remain in the emergency room for 24 hours before they could free up a room for the former child star. His wife Lauren related the story to fans, adding that her husband is doing better and will likely be released within a week.
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Dow, now 76 years old, is best known for playing Beaver’s older brother, Wally Cleaver, in Leave it to Beaver. He appeared in over 200 episodes between 1957 and 1963.
“On behalf of Tony and myself we thank you for your concern for him,” Lauren Shulkind said in a statement.
In addition to his acting, Dow is a director, producer, and artist who has done both visual effects work for TV and sculpture. According to TMZ‘s breakdown of his accomplishments, some of his sculpture work has been exhibited at the Louvre.
Dow’s 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.”
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.
Leave it to Beaver is one of the first massively popular family sitcoms, and set the template for that kind of show for years to come. In addition to the main series, various cast members (including Dow) came back for revivals and TV movies over the years. From 1983 to 1989, Dow reprised his role as Wally Cleaver in a reunion television movie and in a subsequent series The New Leave It to Beaver, the latter of which he directed some episodes for.
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