Ken Osmond, Eddie Haskell From 'Leave It to Beaver' Dead At 76

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ken Osmond, who played two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell on TV's "Leave It to Beaver," died Monday at age 76. Osmond died in Los Angeles, his family said. No cause was given.

"He was an incredibly kind and wonderful father," son Eric Osmond said in a statement. "He had his family gathered around him when he passed. He was loved and will be very missed."

BURBANK, CA - AUGUST 17: Actors Cathy Garver, Alison Arngrim and Ken Osmond appear at the First Official TV Land Convention at the Burbank Airport Hilton on August 17, 2003 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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.

Eddie was the best friend of Tony Dow's Wally Cleaver, big brother to Jerry Mathers' Beaver Cleaver. He constantly kissed up to adults, flattering and flirting with Wally and Beaver's mother, and kicked down at his peers, usually in the same scene. He was the closest thing the wholesome show had to a villain, and viewers of all ages loved to hate him.

"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 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. Mathers said he will greatly miss his friend of 63 years.

"I have always said that he was the best actor on our show because in real life his personality was so opposite of the character that he so brilliantly portrayed," Mathers said on Twitter.

Osmond was born in Glendale, California, to a carpenter father and a mother who wanted to get him into acting. 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.

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.

HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 01: Ken Osmond arrives at the 82nd Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade on Hollywood Blvd. on December 1, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Hollywood Christmas Parade)

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.

He would soon give up acting and become a Los Angeles police officer for more than a decade.

"I was very much typecast. 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. 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."

Dow, who was a lifelong friend of Osmond's said "His motorcycle cop stories are terrific." He recalled his favorite involved Osmond and his partner chasing down and cornering a robbery suspect who turned and shot Osmond in the stomach before his partner wounded the man. Although Osmond's bulletproof vest absorbed most of the impact, he still had to go to the hospital.

"And he had to ride in the same ambulance with the guy who shot him," Dow recalled being told.

He would return to TV in 1983, when "Leave It to Beaver" reruns were having a heyday, appearing in the TV movie "Still the Beaver."

MARINA DEL REY - FEBRUARY 03: Actor Ken Osmond arrives at the launch party for "Gilligan's Island: The Complete First Season" on February 03, 2004 in Marina del Rey, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

A revival series, "The New Leave It to Beaver," came next, with Osmond reprising the role of Haskell alongside Dow and Mathers from 1983 to 1989. Osmond's real-life sons with wife Sandra Purdy, Eric and Christian, played Haskell's sons, who shared their father's smarminess on the series.

In 2014 Osmond would co-author a memoir reflecting on his life as Haskell. It was titled, "Eddie: The Life and Times of America's Preeminent Bad Boy."

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