Jay North, Child Star who played “Dennis the Menace”, dies at 73

Jay North, who played the well -intentioned protagonist of the popular Sitcom of the CBS “Dennis the Menace” from 1959 to 1963, died on Sunday in his home in Lake Butler, Florida. He was 73 years old.

His death was confirmed by Laurie Jacobson, a friend of Mr. North for 30 years. The cause was Colon -Terre Cancer, Mrs. Jacobson said.

Mr. North played Towhed Dennis Mitchell, who wandered in his neighborhood, usually dressed with a striped shirt and all -up, with his friends, and often exasperated his neighbor, a pensioner named George Wilson, who was played by Joseph Kearns. Herbert Anderson played Dennis’ father e Gloria Henry He played his mother.

Dennis ends up causing many problems usually by chance.

In one episode, a truck knocks on a road sign, and Dennis and a friend stand up – incorrectly. The workers then dig a gigantic hole, destined to be a swimming pool for a different address, in the courtyard of Mr. Wilson.

The show, adapted by a comic by Hank Ketcham, presented an idyllic and innocent vision of suburban America while the 1950s gave way to tumultuous 60s.

But things were not easy for Mr. North behind the scenes.

Many years after the end of “Dennis the Menace”, Mr. North said that his acting success came at the cost of a happy childhood.

In 1993, he told Los Angeles Daily News that his aunt and uncle were his custodians on the set because his single mother worked full time. He said that his aunt and his uncle, who had died at the time of the interview, had abused him physically and emotionally.

“If they needed me more than one or two filming, I would be threatened and then hit,” he said.

Mr. North said he took death from suicide at the age of 42 Rusty HamerWho was a star of “The Danny Thomas Show” (also entitled “Make Room for Daddy”) in the 50s and 60s, to help him re -evaluate his life.

“I am finally starting a new life and bury Dennis Mitchell,” North said in the Daily News interview. “I need new bad to be Jay North.”

Jay Waverly North Jr. was born on August 3, 1951 in Los Angeles, and grew up there.

Mr. North started acting About 5 years after implying his mother to help him get on “The Engineer Bill Show”, a popular children’s program in the 1950s also known as “Cartoon Express”.

“The children were used as the public of the participating stage and I asked her to help me enter the show,” North said to the New York Times in 1993.

He appeared in several episodes of the show and also started supporting the products, including post cereals.

After the end of “Dennis the Menace”, Mr. North appeared in television programs including “Wagon Train”, “The Man from Uncle”, “The Lucy Show”, “My Three Sons” and “Gerico”.

He played a leading role in the film “Maya” (1966), who followed two teenagers who undertake an adventure through India at the turn of an elephant and continued to act in the short television series of Spin -ff of the film, also “Maya”.

Mr. North also carried out a vocal job, including the voice of Prince Turhan in “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour” and the Bamm-Bamm teen rubble in “The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show”.

But his career as an actor eventually escaped.

Mr. North said he is often typographic and found it difficult to restore after “Dennis the Menace”. Him enlisted In the United States Navy in 1977 and was discharged with honor in 1979.

Mr. North at the end moved to Lake Butler, Florida, and worked as a correction officer with the Florida’s corrections department. In 1993, he married his third wife, Cindy Hackney, who survives.

Although Mr. North He said he came to Patti with the role This has defined his career, a performance may have been particularly cathartic.

In a 1987 Episode of the series of satire Hbo “not necessarily the news”, He played a furious and violent version of himself obsessed with the revenge of the Hollywood managers who had ignored him, everything while wearing the author’s suit of the Menace The Menace and the stripes shirt.