Jay North, who starred as the young mischief maker with the characteristic blond cowlick on the 1959-63 CBS comedy Dennis the Menace, has died. He was 73.
North died Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Florida, after years of battling colon cancer, Jeannie Russell, who played Margaret Wade on his show, told The Hollywood Reporter. She called him her “otherworldly brother.”
On Screen Gems’ Dennis the Menace, based on the comic strip created by Hank Ketcham, North starred as the well-intentioned but troublesome Dennis Mitchell, the only child of Henry (Herbert Anderson) and Alice (Gloria Henry). He often created chaos for his retired next-door neighbor George Wilson and then his brother, John Wilson (Gale Gordon).
(Joseph Kearns had played George, and after his death in 1962, Gordon was brought on to replace him).
North was 6 when he first auditioned for Dennis, 8 when the show went on the air in October 1959 and almost 12 when the series was canceled after four seasons. However, he would be seen by millions of viewers over the years as the half-hour show played in reruns and in syndication.
In a 1993 interview, North said he was not unhappy to see Dennis the Menace come to an end.
“Between the pressures of the business and Joe’s dying, I became very serious, very morbid and very withdrawn from the world. I was the antithesis of the little kid that I played on the television show,” he said.
North then starred as another impish kid in the MGM movie Zebra in the Kitchen (1965), directed by Ivan Tors, and played opposite Clint Walker in the India-set adventure Maya (1966), also for MGM.
He returned for a 1967-68 Maya series for NBC and found that to be a very rewarding experience, he said.
An only child, North was born in Los Angeles on Aug. 3, 1951. He was 4 when his father, also Jay, left the family, and he never saw him again. His mother, Dorothy, worked as a secretary for AFTRA.
Through his mom, North appeared on the L.A. kids TV show Cartoon Express, and it was there that he was spotted by talent agent Hazel MacMillan. She got him on such shows as Wanted: Dead or Alive, 77 Sunset Strip and Sugarfoot before he was hired for Dennis the Menace, with his reddish hair bleached platinum blonde.
While the series was on the air, North also appeared as Dennis on The Donna Reed Show and The Red Skelton Hour and in the 1960 musical comedy film Pépé, starring Cantinflas.
All along, he said he was abused by his aunt, who was his guardian on the show. “If it took me more than one of two takes, I would be threatened and then whacked,” he told the Los Angeles Daily News in 1993.
“Even if a delay wasn’t my fault, she would find a way to blame me and punish me. She was also very possessive and isolated me from the rest of the cast. I couldn’t even eat lunch with everybody else. She made me eat it in the dressing room by myself.”
After the Maya series, North graduated from Rexford Senior High School in Beverly Hills in 1969 and worked as a voice actor on such kids shows as The Banana Splits Adventure Hour and The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.
In 1974, he starred in the R-rated thriller The Teacher, starring Angel Tompkins, and then served briefly in the U.S. Navy. In 1988, he was the victim of a news hoax that said he had died in a doctor’s office.
More recently, North worked with Paul Petersen in the The Donna Reed Show actor’s organization, A Minor Consideration, to help former childhood stars deal with real life; served as a correctional officer in Florida; and showed up in the 2003 film Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.
Survivors include his third wife, Cindy.
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