Jerry Mathers revealed that people thought that he and Tony Dow were really brothers

The on-screen brothers often puzzled people in real life.

July 19, 2024, 12:05PM By MeTV Staff

NBC/Universal

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher might have done too good of a job when creating the Cleaver family of Leave It to Beaver.

According to Jerry Mathers' memoir, And Jerry Mathers as The Beaver, he and his on-screen brother, Tony Dow, were often mistaken for actual siblings. Mathers and Dow played Theodore and Wally Cleaver, but Mathers explained that for some fans, the series felt so realistic that the lines between fiction and real life felt blurred.

"Tony and I have been good friends since I met him in 1957," Mathers wrote. "There are people out there today who still think Tony and I really are brothers. I think it may be because of Rick and David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet. They find it hard to believe that Tony isn't my real brother and that the Cleavers are not a real family. They believe that the people in Mayfield really existed and things that happened on the show really did happen. Kids and adults often tell me that one particular show is their favorite. What is funny is that it is usually never the same show. I ask them why that particular show is their favorite. The reason they frequently give is: 'When I was a kid, the same thing happened to me.'"

Mathers was quick to thank the crew that brought Leave It to Beaver to life. He also explained that while he and Dow were close friends as an adult, they were actually intentionally kept apart during the years spent filming the show.

"Great credit goes to the writers," wrote Mathers. "The scripts were so well written off the bat, that Tony and I fell easily into the pattern. But the concept of being brothers pretty much stopped when the shooting stopped. That's because we were segregated by age... because we went to different schools, we didn't really spend a great deal of time together during those early years. This was no accident either. As parents themselves, Connelly and Mosher knew only too well that the little kids would try to emulate the older kids, and they'd be far better off keeping us apart."