7 Things You Never Knew About ‘Leave It to Beaver’ Star Hugh Beaumont, TV’s Ultimate Dad
Given how iconic his role as Ward Cleaver on the 1950s sitcom Leave it to Beaver became, it might not occur to you that Hugh Beaumont was a man who wore many hats. But before he became the Cleaver patriarch — the ever-patient epitome of calm, cardigan-hearing fatherhood — Beaumont was a nightclub performer, wartime medic, ad pitchman, and Methodist minister.
He also believably played a series of baddies on the big and small screens. But a minor project with a little boy named Jerry Mathers, who’d just been cast in the title role of a Universal Studios sitcom, led Beaumont to the role that would define his career for generations to come.
“No father on television was ever better than Hugh,” said Barbara Billingsley, who played the Beaver’s equally revered mom, June Cleaver.
Still, Billingsley told Mathers in a chat for the latter’s autobiography, she and Beaumont were far from instant friends. “He called me a Pollyanna, and that teed me off,” Billingsley shared. “But we soon learned to get along very well, and we became great, great friends.”
As for Beaumont himself, who died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 73, he appreciated that Beaver’s writers and creators made Ward the indisputable, respected patriarch of the Cleaver family — but a fair one, too.
“I’m glad the creators and writers of our series made Ward Cleaver the head of the family — the man who earns the bread and solves the problems of his dependents,” Beaumont told Pennsylvania newspaper The Morning Call in 1959. “Our country grew and prospered under this kind of man and I’m sorry to see fathers losing the respect of their children.”
Everett Collection
“I like the way Ward Cleaver handles his children,” Beaumont continued. “Ward tries to be fair and just. When he makes a mistake in judgment, he apologizes sincerely and that’s the end of it. If he has to call off a family picnic or outing, he explains why. His boys know him well enough so that the old ‘but you promised’ isn’t heard.”
In honor of the man who raised Wally and the Beave — and generations of TV watchers, too — with a firm but gentle hand, here are some “Gee, Wally!” worthy facts about Hugh Beaumont
1 He taught Jerry Mathers to cry on cue
According to Mathers on his official web site, he and Beaumont were costars in a promotional film for Rose Hill Memorial Park. Mathers said he was supposed to cry in the ad, so Beaumont taught him how. “He said, ‘Put your face into your hands and laugh really hard. It’s an old actor’s trick because the sound of laughter and crying are very closely related,’” Mathers shared, adding that it did, indeed, work.
2 That commercial — and Mathers’ mom — led to Beaumont being cast as Ward Cleaver
Mathers went on to thank “my dear mother who told Hugh that the producers from Leave It to Beaver were looking to cast the father in the new television series that I was just hired for, and she thought he would be perfect. He auditioned, got the part and the rest is history!”
3 The role had already been cast when Beaumont auditioned
Everett Collection
Billed as “Casey Adams,” a young Max Showalter — best known as Sixteen Candles‘ boozy Uncle Fred — played Ward Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver’s pilot episode. But when producers decided to recast, Mathers’ mom, Marilyn, recommended Beaumont for the role. “When I saw him, I was so happy, because he was the nice man that I worked with on the Rose Hills shoot,” Mathers recalled. “When we read a short scene together, we had a good chemistry and Hugh got the part.”
Not only did Mathers enjoy a lifelong friendship with his onscreen dad, but his real-life dad did, too. Beaumont would even come to the Mather home to play cards with Norman Mathers and his pals.
4 There was a good reason Ward’s patience and good advice seemed so believable
Everett Collection
Before he decided to switch to acting full-time, Beaumont earned a Masters of Theology degree from the University of Southern California. He became licensed as a Methodist minister, but rarely preached once his acting career took off. In an interview for the Times Mirror Company, Beaumont explained: “On the few occasions a year when I’m invited to preach, I always caution the minister of the church not to introduce me.”
Beaumont also requested that no autograph sessions take place, post service. “When I go to church to preach a sermon, I got as a preacher, not as an actor,” he said. “When I’m being interviewed as an actor on a TV series, I don’t want to trade on my church work.”
Beaumont also played a man of the cloth on TV in The Lone Ranger and Crossroads (the 1955-1957 series), and in the films The Member of the Wedding and Washington Story.
> Who Is Still Alive From ‘Leave It to Beaver’?
5 He was often cast as villains before he became Ward
MONEY MADNESS, Hugh Beaumont, 1948
With his strong and malleable features, Beaumont was frequently cast as cagey sorts — or humorless detectives — before he became one of TV’s kindest dads. But he never took a role if it compromised his morals.
“I don’t believe in the old saying that the end justifies the means, and no money that I can earn as an actor can accomplish so much good that I would feel justified in violating my ideals to earn it,” he once said. “If the question ever arises in a serious way, of course I would have to give up my acting.”
6 He was a conscientious objector during World War II … to the benefit of his career
Everett Collection
Beaumont did serve as a medic during the conflict, but refused to participate in combat. Because many of his Hollywood peers were enlisted, Beaumont parlayed his talent and versatile looks into leading man status.
Despite his refusal to pick up a rifle, Beaumont enthusiastically supported the wartime presidencies of Richard Nixon, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
7 He spent his final years as a Midwestern Christmas tree farmer
By the early 70s, Beaumont — who’d suffered a debilitating stroke from which he would later recover — retired from acting and went back to the Midwest. But this time, he went a little further
north than his Lawrence, Kansas, birthplace, and headed for his wife Kathryn Adams’ homeland in northern Minnesota. There, Beaumont bought himself a 40-acre Christmas tree farm in Grand Rapids, trading scripts for saplings, with a plan to ship his full-grown firs off to California for sale.
In a 2023 article in AgWeek magazine, Beaumont’s later business partner, Carl Wegner, said the actor first ran the farm with a former Marlboro Man, who eventually sold his share to Wegner. Another fun fir-farm fun fact? Beaumont once a Christmas tree to a famous North Dakotan — bubbly band leader Lawrence Welk.
Remind 