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. 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. Osmond was born in Glendale, California, to a carpenter father and a mother who wanted to get him into acting. '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. Mathers said he will greatly miss his friend of 63 years. '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. 27, 2007 file photo, seated, from left, Jerry Mathers, Barbara Billingsley and Tony Dow, and, standing from left, Frank Bank and Ken Osmond, pose for a photo as they are reunited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the television show,'Leave it to Beaver,' in Santa Monica, Calif. '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 the closest thing the wholesome show had to a villain, and viewers of all ages loved to hate him. 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. Eddie was the best friend of Tony Dow's Wally Cleaver, big brother to Jerry Mathers' Beaver Cleaver.

Leave it to beaver actors