Jay North
Jay North | |
---|---|
Born | August 3, 1951 Hollywood, Los Angeles, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Actor Correctional officer |
Years active |
|
Spouses |
Cindy Hackney (m. 1993) |
Children | 3 stepdaughters |
Jay Waverly North Jr. (born August 3, 1951) is an American actor. His career as a
As a teen North had roles in two
After leaving show business he disclosed the truth about the difficulties he dealt with as a child actor. He began working with fellow former child star Paul Petersen and the organization A Minor Consideration, using his own experiences as a child performer to counsel other children working in the entertainment industry.
Early life
North was born in Hollywood, the only child of Jay and Dorothy (née Cotton) North.[1][2][3][4][5][6] North's father was an alcoholic, and his parents' marriage was turbulent.[5][7] When he was four, his parents separated, and North never saw his father again.[5][7] He briefly resided happily in Birmingham, Alabama. His mother worked as the secretary to the West Coast director of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).[4][5][7][8]
From a young age, North was a fan of television. When he was six, his mother used her connections at AFTRA to arrange for him to appear on his favorite television program, local Los Angeles children's show Cartoon Express, hosted by
Career
Early years
North's first professional acting job was a live appearance on the gameshow
In June 1958,
The season passed, and North heard nothing more from Screen Gems, but continued to work, appearing in a Christmas-themed episode of the CBS Western series
Dennis the Menace
Dennis the Menace premiered on CBS on Sunday, October 4, 1959, and quickly became a hit with audiences. North was paid US$500 (equivalent to about $5,200 in 2023) per episode,[5][15] his strawberry red hair was bleached platinum blonde for the role,[3][16][17][18] and the 8-year-old was instructed to "shave" a year off his age when speaking with the press.[19][20] His mother continued to work at AFTRA full-time, and hired business managers to invest his earnings.[3][5][8] In a 1993 interview with Filmfax magazine, North spoke highly of his mother, saying: "I want to make it very clear about one thing. I never supported my mother during [Dennis the Menace]. She earned her own money from AFTRA. She never lived off my earnings. I know that sometimes happens with child actors, but it was not true in my situation."[5]
While his mother worked, her sister Marie Hopper and brother-in-law actor-composer Hal Hopper served as his on-set guardians during filming for Dennis The Menace.[3][4][5][7][8][12][18][21] In addition to filming the series, he appeared as Dennis in commercials for the show's sponsors, Kellogg's cereals, Best Foods mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter, and Bosco chocolate milk, and regularly traveled around the country with his aunt and uncle on the weekends to promote the show.[4][5][9][12] These obligations, combined with the required three hours a day of school, took their toll on him, and by the end of the first season, the 8-year-old had begun to feel the pressures of being the lead star of a popular show.[4][5][7][8][9]
In late 1960, the second season of the series was ranked among TV's top 20 shows, and his portrayal of Dennis had become a beloved
By late 1961, the series was in its third season, and North was earning $2,500 (equivalent to about $25,000 in 2023) per episode.[4] The show remained in the top 20, but North had grown tired and frustrated with the pressures of carrying a hit show and the long work hours.[4][5][8] Complicating matters was his relationship with his aunt Marie.[3][5][26] Many years later, North revealed that his aunt physically and verbally abused him when he made mistakes on the set or did not perform to her standards. He said if he failed a line, she would take him behind the set and beat him. For years, it was too painful for him to watch reruns.[3][4][5][7][12][26] His mother and the rest of the Dennis The Menace cast were unaware of the abuse, and he concealed his unhappiness due to threatened retribution from his aunt.[3][5][12] In a 1993 interview, North's childhood co-star, Jeannie Russell, said, "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."[3] In 2007, she said: "'The show comes first.' This was the ethic that we were raised in. Had I seen any abuse or any horrible upset on Jay's part, I would have noticed. It would have impacted me. It would have upset me terribly."[12]
By the fourth season, North was earning $3,500 (equivalent to about $36,000 in 2023) an episode;[15] but by 1962, the 11-year-old had begun to outgrow the character's childish antics.[7][16][27] This, combined with the unexpected death of the actor who played Dennis' foil, Mr. Wilson (Joseph Kearns), near the end of season three, had changed the dynamic of the show.[5][16][28] During his interview with Filmfax, North recalled: "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."[5] By the end of the fourth season, ratings were down, and in early 1963, to his relief, Dennis The Menace was canceled.[4][5][16][17]
Teen years
In late 1963, North's mother enrolled him in
In 1965, he landed the lead role in the
The feature film Maya and subsequent television series made North a popular
Adult years
After completing filming on the Maya television series, North found work as a voice actor for
In 1974, North appeared in his last starring role in the R-rated coming-of-age suspense thriller The Teacher, opposite Angel Tompkins.[5] Though the film's adult themes were branded "vulgar" and "lurid" by some who still thought of North as his Dennis performance 10 years prior,[7][41][42] Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas appreciated North's work in the film, writing,
The plot of The Teacher isn't worth outlining, yet it develops a relationship between a 28-year-old woman and an 18-year-old high school boy with sensitivity and credibility unusual for an exploitation film. [...] Avedis displays much concern for his people and allows Miss Tompkins and North plenty of room to give fresh, spontaneous performances."[42]
Over the next several years, North held onto the hope of being rediscovered by Hollywood and continued to take acting classes, but by early 1977, disillusioned with his career in show business, he left acting and enlisted in the
In 1980, he appeared in a cameo role in the television movie
In January 1986, North landed a small role in the Yugoslavian feature film Divlji Vetar (Wild Wind).[22] Later that year, he read for the role of serial killer Ted Bundy in the television miniseries The Deliberate Stranger, but lost the part to Mark Harmon.[4] Still interested in stories about serial killers, North decided to try his hand at screenwriting.[45][46] His first script was about a 1984 prison break by six death-row inmates from Virginia's Mecklenburg Correctional Center, but the screenplay was never completed.[45][46] Throughout the rest of the 1980s, he appeared with other former television stars on news and talk shows such as Good Morning America, Donahue, and Oprah.[22] In October 1988, he acted out his frustrations toward Hollywood in a comedy sketch on an episode of HBO's Not Necessarily the News, spoofing his role as Dennis the Menace. Dressed in overalls, striped t-shirt, and cowlick, 37-year-old North portrayed an angry adult Dennis, taking revenge on "Hollywood pigs" with a telescopic rifle.[4][7]
After acting
Hoaxes
On the morning of December 8, 1988, North was at the center of a widely reported
A Minor Consideration
On January 18, 1990, North received a phone call from Paul Petersen telling him that former child star Rusty Hamer from The Danny Thomas Show had died by suicide.[3][4] Hamer's death was a turning point for North when childhood friends Petersen (Jeff Stone on The Donna Reed Show) and Jeannie Russell (Margaret Wade on Dennis the Menace), concerned with North's similarities, put him in contact with therapist Stan W. Ziegler, who specialized in troubled former child actors.[3][4][5] North later joined Petersen's organization, A Minor Consideration, using his experiences to counsel child stars dealing with the same pressures and difficulties he had faced growing up.[3][7][26][47]
Personal life
On March 2, 1991, North married his second wife, Rositia. The couple had met on a blind date and separated only 3 months after their wedding.[3][4][5][7] On April 14, 1992, he met caterer Cindy Hackney at a party after a charity event for pediatric AIDS in Gainesville, Florida.[7] On March 3, 1993, they were married, and three months later, still financially well-off as a result of his mother's investments of his earnings as a child star, North left Los Angeles and moved to Hackney's hometown of Lake Butler, Florida, becoming stepfather to her three daughters. This move was a permanent break from the Hollywood area that had troubled him.[3][4][5][7][13][15][26][48] That year, with the release of the 1993 feature film Dennis the Menace, the media sought what had become of the "original" Dennis. This renewed interest prompted him to publicly disclose the abuse he had experienced as a child star.[3][13][26][47][48]
In May 1997, having come to terms with the physical and emotional abuse he had suffered at the hands of his aunt and uncle,
Since the early 1990s, North has made occasional appearances on talk shows, documentaries, cameo appearances as "himself" on The Simpsons, and in the comedy feature film Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.[13] In 1999, he concluded his E! interview by saying, "I am so happy that I was able to have such a positive impact on people's lives. I'm going to write my autobiography and then I'm just going to live a contented, happy life here in Lake Butler with the people I love, and kind of just vanish into the mists of time."[4]
Filmography
Television
- Cartoon Express with Engineer Bill (1957)
- Queen for a Day (1958)
- The George Gobel Show(1958)
- The Eddie Fisher Show (1958)
- The Milton Berle Show(1958)
- Wanted: Dead or Alive(1958)
- 77 Sunset Strip (1959)
- Rescue 8 (1959)
- Cheyenne(1959)
- Bronco (1959)
- Colt .45 (1959)
- Sugarfoot (Bobby in "The Giant Killer") (1959)
- The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor(1959)
- The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (1959)
- The Ed Sullivan Show (1960)
- The Donna Reed Show (1960)
- The Red Skelton Hour(1960)
- The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1960)
- Art Linkletter's House Party(1961)
- Dennis the Menace (1959–1963)
- Wagon Train (1964)
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1965)
- The Lucy Show (1966)
- My Three Sons (1966)
- Jericho (1966)
- Space Ghost (1966)
- Maya(1967–1968)
- Arabian Knights (1968)
- Here Comes the Grump (1969–1971)
- The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971)
- The Flintstone Comedy Hour (1972)
- Lassie (1973)
- Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977)
- Scout's Honor(1980)
- General Hospital (1982)
- Our Time (1985)
- Not Necessarily the News (1988)
- The Simpsons (1999)
Film
- The Miracle of the Hills (1959)
- The Big Operator (1959)
- Pépé (1960)
- Zebra in the Kitchen (1965)
- Maya (1966)
- The Teacher (1974)
- Dikiy veter (Wild Wind) (1986)
- Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
References
- ^ "California Births, 1905-1995". FamilyTreeLegends.com. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^ "The Almanac - Born on this date". The Bryan Times 2. August 3, 1990.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Ray Richmond (June 24, 1993). "Jay North lays the demons of 'Dennis' to rest". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar "Dennis the Menace Revealed: The Jay North Story". E! True Hollywood Story. 1999.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax Minton, Kevin (June–July 1993). "The Menacing of Dennis". Filmfax Magazine.
- ^ "Jay North Answers 50 Intimate Questions". 16 Spec. No. 12. 16 Magazine, Inc. Winter 1968. pp. 18–20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Charlie Patton (September 11, 2000). "'Dennis' grows up". The Florida Times-Union. Archived from the original on January 16, 2001.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Stephanie Mansfield (March 29, 1978). "Dennis the Menace in the Navy". The Washington Post.
- ^ a b c d Larry Walters (April 1, 1962). "The REAL Dennis the Menace". The Chicago Tribune.
- ^ a b c d Anita Summer (September 17, 1978). "Where Are They Now?". Boca Raton News.
- ^ a b c ""Dennis The Menace" To Visit Tweetsie Railroad". The Dispatch. July 3, 1963.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Radio Interview with Gloria Henry and Jeannie Russell". Dennis the Menace: Season One DVD. 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Beck, Ken (November 13, 2005). "Grown-up menace is helping children". The Tennessean.
- ^ Fred Danzig (November 23, 1959). "The Channel Swim". Beaver Valley Times.
- ^ a b c d e f Mitchell Smyth (June 27, 1993). "First 'Dennis' runs a health-food firm". Toronto Star.
- ^ a b c d e f Bob Thomas (July 26, 1964). "Dennis The Menace Gains Status Since Leaving TV". Tri-City Herald.
- ^ a b c d e Vernon Scott (August 3, 1964). "'Dennis The Menace' Grows Up". The News-Dispatch.
- ^ a b c Joe Hyams (February 19, 1961). "TV's 'Dennis The Menace' Is Model Lad Off-Camera". The Tuscaloosa News.
- ^ Dorothy Kilgallen (December 2, 1959). "Darling Quote from Jay North". Daytona Beach Morning Journal.
- ^ Janet Kern (December 21, 1959). "Ernie Ford will entertain young Jay North". The Milwaukee Sentinel.
- ^ a b c Bob Thomas (July 29, 1964). "Actor Jay North Is Making Comeback at the Age of 12". Reading Eagle.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mike Duffy (December 22, 1988). "Life isn't charmed for 'Dennis the Menace'". The Spokesman-Review.
- ^ "Menace Is Guest in 'Pepe'". Toledo Blade. February 26, 1960.
- ^ "The Misadventures of Dennis the Menace". Colpix. 1960.
- ^ "Jay North - Look Who's Singing!". Kem Records. 1960.
- ^ a b c d e f "Jay North 'at peace'". Gainesville Sun. June 21, 1993.
- ^ Bob Thomas (July 15, 1962). "Dennis the Menace Can Act His Age Next Season". Nevada Daily Mail.
- ^ "Joseph Kearns, 55, TV Actor Is Dead". The New York Times. February 18, 1962.
- ^ a b "TV's "Dennis" Is Coming To Promote Movie". The Dispatch. July 9, 1966.
- ^ a b Ruth Thompson (September 23, 1967). "Jay North In India To Make "Maya" Series". Gettysburg Times.
- ^ a b Rick DuBrow (September 18, 1967). "Shots Of India Make 'Maya'". The News-Dispatch.
- ^ "'Dennis the Menace' Grows Up!". Tiger Beat. December 1966.
- ^ "Jay North, Yesterday...and Today!". Tiger Beat. April 1967.
- ^ "My Early Life, by Jay North". Tiger Beat. December 1967.
- ^ "Jay North - All Grown Up!". Teen Datebook. December 1967.
- ^ "Sajid and Jay Tell All on Each Other!". 16 Magazine. February 1968.
- ^ "Sajid and Jay Present 'Our Favorite Pix!'". 16 Magazine. March 1968.
- ^ "Jay North Comes Home! And You Are There!". Flip Magazine. May 1968.
- ^ "Fantastic Plastic Machine, the".
- ^ a b c d e Mitchell Smyth (December 27, 1987). "Dennis the Menace finds roles scarce". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
- ^ Jack O'Brian (October 22, 1973). "Age of Vulgarity". The Spartanburg Herald.
- ^ a b Kevin Thomas (May 10, 1974). "A Student, Teacher Affair". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
- ^ Jason Garcia (March 24, 2002). "'Dennis The Menace' Actor Makes Mount Dora Stop". Orlando Sentinel.
- ^ "USS DIXIE (AD-14) Crew Roster". Retrieved August 4, 2014.
1978, BM, North, Jay, Los Angeles, CA
- ^ a b "Slayer Is Electrocuted in Virginia". New York Times. April 15, 1988.
- ^ a b "Penitentiary calm during execution". The Bryan Times. April 15, 1988.
- ^ a b "Jay North puts 'Dennis' behind him". The Washington Times. June 21, 1993.
- ^ a b "Jay North says child stardom can be hurtful". Daily News of Los Angeles. June 21, 1993.
- ^ "'Dennis the Menace' Reunion Interview". KTLA 5 News. September 30, 2011. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.
Bibliography
- Holmstrom, John (1996). The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995. Norwich, Michael Russell, p. 295.
- Edelson, Edward (1979). Great Kids of the Movies. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, pp. 103–105.