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Ward Cleaver
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Ward Cleaver is a fictional character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. Ward and his wife, June, are often invoked as archetypal suburban parents of the babyboomer 1950s. The couple are the parents of Wally, a thirteen-year-old in the eighth grade, and seven-year-old ("almost eight") second-grader Theodore, nicknamed "The Beaver". A typical episode from Leave It to Beaver follows a misadventure committed by one or both of the boys, and ends with the culprits receiving a moral lecture from their father and a hot meal from their mother.Hugh Beaumont portrays Ward in the series and directed several episodes in the later seasons of the show. Max Showalter (appearing as Casey Adams) plays Ward in the series' pilot, "It's a Small World" which aired in April 1957. Many of the Leave It to Beaver players were featured in their original roles in a reunion movie televised in 1983 (Still the Beaver) and a sequel series called The New Leave It to Beaver that aired from 1985 to 1989. Hugh Beaumont had died in 1982, and in the 1983 reunion movie the character of Ward Cleaver was portrayed as having died in 1977, at the age of 67. Christopher McDonald plays Ward in the 1997 spin-off film adaptation Leave It to Beaver.
Ward's principal dramatic function in the series is to end each episode with moral instruction for one or both of his errant sons. Ward's relationships with his wife and his co-worker Fred Rutherford are asides that flesh out his character.
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Filmography of Ward Cleaver (1 films)
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Leave It to Beaver (1997)
, 1h24Directed by Andy Cadiff
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Adventure
Actors Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, Cameron Finley, Erik von Detten, Erika Christensen, Adam Zolotin
Rating52%
Beaver (Cameron Finley) gets his heart set on a bicycle in a store window, but does not think his parents will shell out that money for it. Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin) tells him that if he sucks up to his father (Christopher McDonald), by signing up for football, he will be sure to get it on his upcoming birthday. He enrolls on the football team and doggedly endures the practices, despite his disadvantage of being smaller than most his teammates. As Eddie predicted, Ward is glad Beaver signed up for football, as evidenced by a brief fantasy Ward has of Beaver making a touchdown while several professional football players all fail to tackle him. However, the first game of the season ends poorly when he passes the ball to a kid on the opposing team when he mistakingly remembered him as a friend from summer camp. On the first day of school five days later, Ward and June (Janine Turner) tell Wally to drop Beaver off and pick him up for a few days because he has never ridden his bike there before. At school he sits beside a very pretty girl named Susan Akatsu (Brenda Song) and has a kind teacher named Miss Landers (Grace Phillips). After school Eddie asks Wally to come to the soda shop to see him flirt with Karen (Erika Christensen). Eddie does not want Beaver to follow them, so Wally leaves him alone at the bike rack telling him he will be back in a second.