‘Dennis the Menace’ Actor Jay North Dead at 73

Dennis the Menace star Jay North has died.

The child actor would go on to star in several TV and film projects, but will forever be remembered as the puckish young boy who captured America’s hearts in the 1960s.

• Dennis the Menace aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963.
• North, age seven, won the role after an audition, but would soon begin to dread the show and the pressures of being a TV star.
• His friend Laurie Jacobson shared the news on Facebook, saying that the 73-year-old died on Sunday afternoon (April 6).

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The majority of North’s roles were for 1960s and ’70s movies and television shows. A comedy called Maya and a TV adaptation by the same name were two of his better-known projects.

His last starring role was in a thriller called The Teacher. He did a significant amount of voice work until he left Hollywood and joined the Navy in 1977.

After that, the work came sporadically for North and he began to chase other careers, including writing and screenwriting. Frustrations would spill out occasionally, as in a sketch for a 1980s HBO sketch comedy show called Not Necessarily the News.

USA Today points out that the actor’s final role was in a David Spade and Alyssa Milano project called Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003). A few years prior, he’d come clean about the extent of the pressure he felt carrying a TV show at age eight.

Making matters worse was physical and emotional abuse from his aunt, who acted as his guardian while his mother worked a full-time job.

“If it took me more than one or two takes, I would be threatened and then whacked,” North told the Los Angeles Daily News. “Even if a delay wasn’t my fault, she would find a way to blame me and punish me. She was also very possessive and isolated me from the rest of the cast. I couldn’t even eat lunch with everybody else. She made me eat it in the dressing room by myself.”

In recent years, North battled cancer at his home in Lake Butler, Fla. Jacobson remembered his big heart and constant love for friends.

“He called us frequently and ended every conversation with ‘I love you with all my heart,'” she shares. “And we loved him with all of ours … we will miss him terribly. He is out of pain now. His suffering is over. At last he is at peace.”