Larry Mondello is a

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

al character from the American

television series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...

Leave It to Beaver ''Leave It to Beaver'' is an American television sitcom that follows the misadventures of a suburban boy, his family and his friends. It starred Barbara Billingsley, Hugh Beaumont, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers. CBS first broadcast the show ...

'' (1957–1963). He is portrayed by

child actor The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage, television, or in film, movies. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associa ...

Robert "Rusty" Stevens. Larry Mondello appears in 68 of the show's 234 episodes over the first few seasons. Although Larry is mentioned in the premiere episode, "Beaver Gets 'Spelled", it is not until the eighth episode, "Beaver's Crush", that he actually makes an appearance.

Description

Larry is Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver's chubby, not very bright classmate and fair-weather best friend distinguished for his apple-eating, candy bar-munching habits. Larry has a knack for leading Beaver astray and getting him into trouble, then running away and abandoning Beaver to face the consequences by himself. Larry's mother, Margaret (portrayed by Madge Blake), is a nervous, exasperated parent, whose husband is so perennially out-of-town on business, the phrase "If your father were home . . ." comes out of her mouth, at some point, in almost every episode in which she appears. Mrs. Mondello sometimes takes Larry to Beaver's father for discipline. Larry's father makes one brief appearance, however; he is seen talking to Larry backstage in the second-season episode, "School Play". Larry has older siblings: an unseen married brother, and an unmarried, unseen, and unattractive (according to Larry) 18-year-old sister (age mentioned in the third season) who lives at home. A little brother was mentioned only once, in the 1958 episode "Beaver and Henry," but never seen. In one episode, Mrs. Mondello catches Larry and Beaver reading Larry's sister's diary. Reports from various characters on the show indicate Larry's home life is one of "hollering" and physical punishments. Larry and Beaver have an on-again/off-again relationship. The boys sometimes quarrel but make up when the clouds pass. They are in the same class together at Grant Avenue Grammar School and are forced to attend ballroom dance lessons at Miss Spencer's School of the Dance on Saturdays. In the first-season episode "Beaver's Short Pants", Larry taunts Beaver at school for having "girl's stockings" and calls him a "sissy" for wearing a formal short pants suit with kneesocks, provoking Beaver to punch Larry in the stomach. Larry runs away from home in one episode — but only as far as Beaver's bathroom where he sleeps in the bathtub. In another episode, Larry throws his mother's pin money out the window, picks it up later, and claims the money fell from an airplane. According to some sources, actor Stevens left the show in 1960 when his family moved from Burbank, California, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, according to

Barbara Billingsley Barbara Billingsley (December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010) was an American actress. She began her career with uncredited roles in '' Three Guys Named Mike'' (1951), '' The Bad and the Beautiful'' (1952), and '' Invaders from Mars'' (1953) and ...

(in her TV Archive interview), his character was written out because of his overly ambitious

stage mother In the performing arts, a stage mother is the mother of a child actor. The term ''stage mother'' sometimes has a negative connotation, suggesting that the individual is prone to obnoxiously demanding special treatment for her child, or suggesting ...

causing grief with the producers. This would tie in more closely with the fact that, post ''Leave It To Beaver'', Stevens continued to get occasional roles in California-shot TV shows through 1963, before his career as a child actor came to a close. Stevens himself mentioned a third reason his career ended: he wanted to get out of the show to live a normal life as a normal kid. Stevens reprised his role of Larry Mondello in the 1983 reunion telemovie, '' Still the Beaver'', and appeared in three episodes of the subsequent series ''The New Leave It To Beaver''.

References

*Applebaum, Irwyn. ''The World According to Beaver.'' TV Books, 1984, 1998. (). *Bank, Frank. ''Call Me Lumpy: my Leave It To Beaver days and other wild Hollywood life ''. Addax, 2002. (), (). *Colella, Jennifer. ''The Leave It to Beaver Guide to Life: wholesome wisdom from the Cleavers!'' Running Press, 2006. (), (). *''Leave It to Beaver: the complete first season''. Universal Studios, 2005. *''Leave It to Beaver: the complete second season''. Universal Studios, 2006. () *Mathers, Jerry. ''...And Jerry Mathers as "The Beaver".'' Berkley Boulevard Books, 1998. () {{Leave It to Beaver Television characters introduced in 1957 Leave It to Beaver characters American male characters in sitcoms Child characters in television