Here’s What Happened to ‘Dennis the Menace’ Star Jay North — His Journey Was a Painful One

Early Days

He was born Jay Waverly North on August 3, 1951 in Hollywood, California, the only child of Jay and Dorothy North. His childhood was rough in the sense that his father was an alcoholic and his parents separated when he was four years old — which marked the last time he actually ever saw his father. His mother, Dorothy, was hired as a secretary to the West Coast branch of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, where she worked throughout the Dennis years. Through that job she actually got the then-six-year-old Jay a guest spot on a local L.A. children’s show Cartoon Express. That appearance led to him being taken on by a talent agent and the start of his acting career.

Television Commercials

Writing a piece for the Press and Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton, New York in 1967, Jay remembered things a little differently: “The acting started with television commercials when I was six. My mother took me to see the Queen for a Day series, and before I left I landed a part finger-painting in a commercial.” That commercial actually led to 1958 guest appearances on The George Gobel Show, The Eddie Fisher Show, The Milton Berle Show and Wanted: Dead or Alive, as well as 1959’s 77 Sunset Strip, Rescue 8, Cheyenne, Bronco, Colt. 45, Sugarfoot, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.

Winning the Starring Role

In June 1958 he answered a nationwide talent search for Dennis the Menace, where he competed against numerous other hopefuls. Although his first audition didn’t go well, he nailed the second one. Following that, he screen tested with Herbert Anderson, Gloria Henry and Joseph Kearns.

Jay wouldn’t hear anything again until the spring of 1959, but then got word that he had been hired to star in the series, which debuted on October 4 of that year. Hank Ketchum commented to the Petaluma Argus-Courier in 1987, “He excelled in the role of Dennis the Menace. They couldn’t have found anyone better to play the part.”

A Lonely Start

“There were about 500 boys at the tryouts,” Jay recalled in 1973. “They all had dyed blond hair and were wearing denim overalls. We each had a three-minute screen test and I think I was excited and happy when I found out I won. I don’t think I understood then that I would have to spend eight hours every weekday in the studio with adults. They gave me three hours of school, four hours of work and one hour for lunch. It was lonely.”

A Gifted Child

In her self-written piece, Dorothy detailed, “I drive Jay to the studio each day before going to work myself. His aunt then takes over while he goes through his paces from 8:30 to 5:30, including a three-hour school period. Jay’s teacher tells me she finds him an extremely bright third grade student. He gets A’s in everything except arithmetic. He picked up a B in that subject, but that isn’t too bad, is it? As his mother, I don’t want Jay to stand out that much. Fame is wonderful, but I must be careful not to let it warp his life. I know many mothers will agree with me that this is an overwhelming problem for the parent of a gifted child.”

Hard Work

Apparently there were other problems that were not being taken into consideration. “Like with all child actors, it’s hard work,” says Geoffrey. “It’s not play. There’s hardly a scene that he’s not in; he was on the set all the time. He was unhappy on the set, he was unhappy at home. But he did enjoy the work, because he has talent. You know, there are child actors who are hired because they’re cute or they have the right look. Not every child actor is actually talented. Jay was and it’s that double-edge sword of having talent and wanting to use it, but having everyone around you using you for their personal goals.”

The Truth Behind the Scenes

His on-set caretakers were aunt and uncle Marie and Hal Hopper, who were, according to Jay, cruel taskmasters. “If I didn’t live up to her unrealistic expectations,” he said, “she would hit me; physically abuse me. I remember I used to wake up every single morning thinking, ‘My God, do I have to spend another day with this woman?’ Because I would go in and do a scene, I would come off the set and everybody said, ‘Hey, you did a great job.’ And then I would get a slap across the face, and taken into the dressing room and get a spanking or verbal tongue lashing or whatever. She would grab my hair and just shake me and made life a living hell for the whole four years.”

Over the years Jay has sung the praises of his mother, who, he says, never took a dime from him — more unusual than you’d think back then. At the same time, he wasn’t able to say anything to her about what was going on, because his aunt and uncle threatened greater bodily harm. As a kid, and given what he had already gone through, there was no reason to doubt them.

Getting Candid

Jeannie Russell, who played Dennis’ frenemy Margaret Wade, told Torrance, California’s The Daily Breeze in 1993, “It was clear on the set that Jay was a hypersensitive kid and his aunt was uncommonly stern and businesslike, but I never personally saw her hit him. If Jay says she abused him in private, then I’m inclined to believe it. The sheer demands of being in every scene all by itself had to be extremely stressful. Any extra pressure from his aunt would have made it unbearable.”

Noted Jay, “She was careful never to hit me in front of anyone else, and in places on my body where it wouldn’t show — although I’m shocked the bruises weren’t visible on my face.”

Bottling Up His Feelings

In that same article, Gloria Henry says that she knew something was wrong. “Jay was kept separate from everyone else,” she said, “and not permitted to have a real childhood. I would say to myself, ‘I hope he makes all the money in the world, because he’s going to need it later on to pay for analysts.’ At the time I begged his aunt and uncle to take him out of the business, to give him back a normal life. His aunt just didn’t understand. She once told me how proud she was that at the end of a long day on the set, she would get out a pillow and Jay would just beat it and beat it to get rid of his extra energy and hostility. It just horrified me. That poor kid was bottling up so much.”

An Introverted Kid

Jay has noted that while the rest of the cast may not have been aware of the physical abuse, but they certainly were of the fact that he was not a happy kid. “I only came alive and became this outgoing, happy little boy when I was in front of the camera,” he said. “But when I was away from the camera and around the stage, I was a very quiet, introverted kid. I had a fascination with a science fiction film called Village of the Damned, about these children who have this power where they could look at people and take control of their minds and have them do horrible things to themselves. I wanted to do that. I wanted to hurt people and cause them the pain that they were causing me.”

The Centerpiece

One has to wonder why this was permitted. “The show needed Jay,” observes Geoffrey. “He was the centerpiece, but they overworked him and didn’t look out for him. Nobody there was protecting him. In today’s world, when there’s a child on the set, there are protective measures, although there are still problems with child actors on set. Jay, it seemed, had no protection. It was even something as small as every 10 days getting his hair bleached. It’s also unpleasant wearing the same costume in every scene, year after year.”

Show Ending

Geoffrey continues, “He had to deal with being frozen at a certain age when Jay was starting to go through puberty, his body was growing, his muscles were forming, his voice was beginning to change and he had to push the sound up to sound like Dennis. And when the show finally was canceled, he was prepared for nothing. His education had been lax, he wasn’t being taught about life. All he knew was going to the studio, but like many child actors he didn’t know how to do the everyday things in life. And all of this led to his being woefully unprepared for being a teenager or continuing his career or just being a person on the planet. As a result, Jay has been an angry man. A good man, a nice man, but a damaged man and angry.”

Breaking Away From Dennis Mitchell

When Dennis the Menace finished its network run, Jay found himself terribly typecast to the point where casting directors and producers could only see Dennis Mitchell when they looked at him. He did make a number of TV guest appearances on shows like Wagon Train, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Lucy Show and My Three Sons.  He also starred in the 1966 feature film Maya, which inspired a TV version he starred in for a single season a year later. Writer Stirling Silliphant described the premise as follows: “It’s about the love of a boy for a father who is missing, and the love of an Indian boy for an elephant which authorities are trying to take away. Maya is told through the eyes of two teenagers as they travel around on a search.” Not surprisingly, this ended up not being what Jay thought it would be, beyond the fact it lasted a single season.

Introduction to Voice Work

Muses Geoffrey, “Can you imagine the humiliation of shooting a series, the show comes on the air and then you find out your voice has been dubbed by somebody else? It was a humiliating experience for Jay and the show didn’t last — it probably didn’t deserve to last. And from there, Jay moved into doing voice work.”

Fading Away

That voice work included the animated series The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, about the now-teenaged children from The Flintstones. Jay voiced Bamm-Bamm opposite Sally Struthers’ Pebbles. His last starring role was in the 1974 film The Teacher.

He explained in 1987 that his acting career really began to fade when he reached his early twenties: “Most people took a look at me as a grown young man with lean features and only saw the 7-year-old tow-headed kid with a cowlick. Even though I was grown and looking different, people in the TV and movie industry still saw me as a kid. They refused to accept the fact I could do an adult part. It was very frustrating to deal with.”

Coming to Terms

“Why am I not loved by the public anymore?” he would ask himself. “It was something that played with my head. All the pressure that I had was to make people love you, make people enjoy you, and all of a sudden it wasn’t there anymore. Then when all that ends, it’s like you’re turned inside out. You go outside and no one’s fawning over you or paying attention to you, and it’s really something you have to come to terms with.”

His Saving Grace

With hopes that Hollywood would rediscover him diminishing, he joined the US Navy but had a difficult time from shipmates and superiors who constantly berated him for his past as a kid actor. He left the Navy in 1979 and while he acted here and there, he more or less retreated from public life and fell into some pretty dark times. There was, however, a saving grace in that his mother had actually put all of his Dennis the Menace money into a trust fund, and, through investments, parlayed that into more than enough money to keep Jay going.

Responding to Rumors

Still, it wasn’t easy, made even more difficult in 1988 when a rumor made the rounds that he had actually died. His first response? “I might as well be dead,” he told the Post-Star of Glen Falls, New York. “This town, Hollywood, won’t give me a job. Some kook called the wire services and spread a malicious rumor that I had died in a doctor’s office. I’m really perplexed. My ex-wife, who lives in Chicago, her father heard it on the radio and they called me all upset. And my old friend, Jon Provost, who played Timmy on Lassie, he heard about it and called. It’s been awful.”

Tragedy Struck

Even worse was the 1990 suicide of Rusty Hammer, who had played Danny Thomas’ son Rusty Williams on 1953 to 1964’s Make Room for Daddy. Like Jay, he went from child star to has-been once the show came to an end, all of which fed into his depression issues and, ultimately, death by a single shot from a .357 Magnum revolver. His death, which followed Anissa Jones’ by a little over a decade, led The Donna Reed Show’s Paul Peterson to organize A Minor Consideration, which has dedicated itself to serving as a support system for child actors. Both Paul and Jeannie Russell feared the same thing could happen to Jay.

Confronting His Demons

Reflects Geoffrey, “We must give Jay credit for not going the way of Anissa and Rusty. Some of that credit also needs to go to Paul Peterson and A Minor Consideration. It was through that that I got to know Jay, because I was on the board when Paul reached out to him and tried to help him as an adult.”

Said Jay, Rusty’s death forced him to confront his own demons. “I was in the same depressed state that Rusty was,” he admitted. “I figured if it could happen to him, then it could to me. I mean, I had been contemplating suicide, too. If I’d kept guns in the house, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

He Deserved Better

Geoffrey for one is grateful that he is. “Like any human being who works really hard — and I’m telling you that weekly television work where you’re in a series, is hard work — and like any other human being on the planet, one expects that for that kind of work you can walk away with something to show: happy memories, financial return, a feeling of accomplishment. Well, his family took his money and they really did a number on his self esteem, so he didn’t feel good about himself walking away from that experience. He was never allowed to own how well he did personally on it. So his anger is justified. It’s just a shame it eats at him.

“Jay North,” he adds, “deserved a better shake and a happier life. He deserved to reap much better financial benefits for his work than he did. He was a talented young person who was good looking, intelligent and charming. And I think he’s a classic example of what happens to a child with those attributes where there is not an adult actively advocating for their welfare.”

Turning His Life Around

With Paul Peterson’s assistance, Jay was put in touch with a therapist and began turning his life around. He moved to Florida with his third wife (becoming a stepfather to her three girls) and took a job as a corrections officer. There he came to grips with his past, speaking out about the abuse he underwent while simultaneously expressing gratitude for the joy that people had gotten watching him on Dennis the Menace. “I still don’t personally think it was a great show,” he said, “but it did bring joy to a lot of people. And I guess it still does every succeeding generation. I am happy about that.”

A New Chapter

And it sounds like he has found some tentative peace with the past, though he’s still on a journey to discover his true self. “I can go on with my life now, but I can’t forget the pain of those years,” he said in a TV interview. “But I think I can find a happy life because I’m not a slave to Hollywood anymore. And I’m not a slave to the public. I don’t owe anybody a damn thing. I just have to concentrate on making myself happy. I gave those people years of happiness, I gave my childhood to make them happy, and now I want to concentrate on making myself happy. I’m finally starting a new life and burying Dennis Mitchell. I need very badly to again be Jay North — whoever that is.”