Jay North, who played the well-meaning trouble-causing protagonist of the popular CBS sitcom Dennis Themenas from 1959 to 1963, passed away Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Florida. He was 73 years old.
His death was confirmed by Mr. North's friend, Laurie Jacobson, for 30 years. The cause was colorectal cancer, she said.
Mr. North played the mischievous Dennis Mitchell. Dennis Mitchell roams his neighborhood, usually covered in striped shirts and overalls. Herbert Anderson played Dennis' father, while Gloria Henry played his mother.
Dennis usually causes a lot of trouble by chance. In one episode, the truck knocks on a street sign, and Dennis and his friend set it up and mistakenly. The workers dig a huge hole intended to be a pool at another address in Mr Wilson's garden.
Adapted from a comic strip by Hank Ketcham, the show gave way to the '60s in the 1950s, giving way, and thus presented an idyllic vision of suburban America.
But things weren't easy for North behind the scenes. Years after “Dennis the Menace” ended, North said his acting success came at the expense of a happy childhood.
In 1993 he told the Los Angeles Daily News that his aunt and uncle were his caretakers on set because his single mother worked full time. He said his aunt and uncle, who had died at the time of the 1993 interview, had abused him physically and emotionally.
“If one or more take takes, I get threatened and then banged,” he said.
North said he died of suicide at the age of 42 of Rusty Hamer, a child star of “Danny Thomas Show” in the 1950s and '60s, and helped him reevaluate his life.
“I'm finally starting a new life and filling in Dennis Mitchell,” North said in an interview with The Daily News. “It's going to take you seriously again to be Jay North.”
Jay Waverly North Jr. was born on August 3, 1951 in Los Angeles and grew up there.
He began acting at about the age of five after asking his mother to join The Engineer Bill Show, a popular children's programme in the 1950s also known as “Cartoon Express.”
“The kids were used as audiences on participating stages and I asked her to help me get into the show,” North told the New York Times in 1993.
He appeared in several episodes of the show and also began supporting products, including post-serials.
After Dennis the Menace ended, North appeared on TV shows Wagon Train, Man from Uncle, Lucy Shaw, My Three Sons and Jericho.
He played the lead role in the feature film Maya (1966), followed by two teenagers who ventured through India across elephants. He also won the title “Maya” in the short spin-off television series of the film.
Mr. North also did the voice job. He was the voice of Prince Tahan, a teenage bamm-bamm tile ble from “Bananas Split Adventure Time” and “Pebble and Bambum Show.” However, his acting career made him feel bad.
North said he was often a typecast and found it difficult to reestablish himself after “Dennis the Menace.” He joined the US Navy in 1977 and was discharged from the hospital in 1979 in honor of his own.
Moving to Butler Lake, he worked as an officer for the Florida Department of Corrections. In 1993 he married Cindy Hackney, his third wife to survive.
North said he agreed to the roles that defined his career, but one performance could have been particularly cathartic.
