![]() ![]() ![]() Osmond and wife Sandra Purdy had two sons, Eric and Christian. In 1968, I bought my first house, in ’69 I got married, and we were going to start a family and I needed a job, so I went out and signed up for the LAPD.”ĭow, who was a lifelong friend of Osmond’s said “His motorcycle cop stories are terrific.” It’s a death sentence,” Osmond told radio host Stu Stoshak in a 2008 interview on “Stu’s Show.” “I’m not complaining because Eddie’s been too good to me, but I found work hard to come by. He would give up acting and become a Los Angeles police officer. Osmond returned to making guest appearances on TV shows including “The Munsters” in the late 1960s, but found he was so identified with Eddie Haskell that it was hard to land roles. The role of Eddie in season one of “Leave It to Beaver” was also supposed to be a one-off guest appearance, but the show’s producers and its audience found him so memorable he became a regular, appearing in nearly 100 of the show’s 234 episodes. He got his first role at age 4, working in commercials and as a film extra, and got his first speaking role at 9, appearing mostly in small guest parts on TV series. Osmond was born in Glendale, California, to a carpenter father and a mother who wanted to get him into acting. “He was one of the few guys on the show who really played a character and created it,” Dow added, chuckling as he mimicked the evil laugh Osmond would unleash when his character was launching one nefarious scheme or another and trying to pull Wally and his younger brother Beaver into it. ![]() “He was a terrific guy, he was a terrific actor and his character is probably one that will last forever,” Dow told The Associated Press on Monday. He constantly kissed up to adults and kicked down at his peers, usually in the same scene, and was the closest thing the wholesome show had to a villain. Ken Osmond’s Eddie Haskell stood out among many memorable characters on the classic family sitcom “Leave it to Beaver,” which ran from 1957 to 1963 on CBS and ABC, but had a decades-long life of reruns and revivals.Įddie was the best friend of Tony Dow’s Wally Cleaver, big brother to Jerry Mathers’ Beaver Cleaver. “He had his family gathered around him when he passed. “He was an incredibly kind and wonderful father,” son Eric Osmond said in a statement. Osmond retired in 1988, but he occasionally returned to television as an older but still oily Eddie Haskell in a revived "Beaver" series.LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ken Osmond, who played the two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell on TV’s “Leave It to Beaver,” died Monday, his family said. He became a Los Angeles police officer in 1970 and made headlines when he was shot in the chest during a chase in 1980 and survived thanks to a bulletproof vest. Osmond tried to continue his acting career after "Leave It to Beaver" ended, but was frustrated at being typecast as a bad guy and eventually gave up show business. Audiences loved the character because everyone knew an Eddie Haskell in real life. But he was ultimately harmless and always wound up the loser. He bullied Beaver and tried to drag Wally into schemes. Osmond portrayed Wally's friend Eddie Haskell – a curly-haired wise guy who was overly polite and deferential to adults, but the moment they turned away, he was insulting, inconsiderate and egocentric. It ran from 1957 until 1963 and it stood out from most early TV comedies for its realism and avoiding outlandish situations – the kids talked like real kids and their parents sometimes lost their patience over poor schoolwork and bad behavior. "Leave It to Beaver" was a sitcom about a young boy nicknamed Beaver, and his older brother, Wally. ![]()
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