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-   -   Whitey from Leave it to Beaver is dead (https://forum.dvdtalk.com/tv-talk/320332-whitey-leave-beaver-dead.html)

goofee girl 09-26-03 06:28 PM

Whitey from Leave it to Beaver is dead
 
And the only article I could find on his death was here: http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/...55/detail.html

That's sort of depressing. :(

mllefoo 09-26-03 06:36 PM

I was a Gilbert fan. Whitey was just an annoying short git.

Sad that these people are all dying young, though. Sucks.

Wonder who is next?

kvrdave 09-26-03 07:04 PM

Wow, they do go in 10s

Trigger 09-26-03 07:15 PM

Child stars and their self-abusive addictions and 'live fast, die young' lifestyles... -ohbfrank-

immortal_zeus 09-26-03 07:27 PM

Mods, can we change the thread title please? It's offensive.

Please change to: "Caucasian from Leave it to Beaver is dead".

Thanks.

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Rypro 525 09-26-03 07:39 PM


Originally posted by immortal_zeus
Mods, can we change the thread title please? It's offensive.

Please change to: "Caucasian from Leave it to Beaver is dead".

Thanks.

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actually, I think Whitey was his name

Scot1458 09-26-03 07:42 PM

he was on the Mancow show with Dice a few years ago...was some funny stuff.

Pac-Rat 09-26-03 07:53 PM

http://logo.cafepress.com/1/103164.111.GIF
The team won't be the same without him.
:(

immortal_zeus 09-26-03 09:30 PM


Originally posted by Rypro 525
actually, I think Whitey was his name
Some people just don't know sarcasm when they see it.

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Giantrobo 09-26-03 09:37 PM

I don't get it. They were all "whitey" :confused:

immortal_zeus 09-26-03 09:41 PM


Originally posted by Giantrobo
I don't get it. They were all "whitey" :confused:
:lol:

Before my "caucasian" joke I was going to put something else but decided against it because it might've been deemed offensive.

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Y2K Falcon 09-26-03 09:51 PM

Wow... Between the maytag guy and the hogan's heroes guy, this completes the lame-supporting character trifecta...

Sad. -ohbfrank-

Numanoid 09-26-03 10:35 PM


Originally posted by Rypro 525
actually, I think Whitey was his name
I believe back in the '70s, he was known around the bathhouses as "Tighty Whitey".

The Antipodean 09-28-03 09:01 PM

Actually, "Whitey" had a fairly tragic life as former child stars go -- he died in Portland, and The Oregonian had a phenomenal profile of him last year by one of their best writers. He had fallen on hard times, drugs, etc., and died fairly young due to complications from surgery. Not the greatest tragedy of our times, true, but a sad tale nevertheless....

Here's the story of his death in The Oregonian last week, by the same writer as the original profile I believe....

Stanley Fafara, known as 'Whitey' on TV, dies at 54
Famous for his "Leave It to Beaver" role, the actor struggled with addiction while living in Portland
09/26/03
TOM HALLMAN JR.

Demons chased Stanley Fafara from Hollywood to Portland, tormenting him while he spiraled into a hand-to-mouth existence on the street. Over time, he lost everything -- family, money, dignity -- to heroin, pills and booze. But friends said that Fafara -- a child actor who had a continuing role as "Whitey" on the "Leave It to Beaver" television show -- was at peace with himself Saturday when he died.
Fafara, 54, had been admitted to the hospital in late August for surgery on an intestine constricted by a hernia. He suffered complications from the surgery, including a blood clot in his leg. He underwent two more operations, both of which weakened an already weak body. Years earlier, Fafara had contracted hepatitis C while using drugs. The surgeries strained his liver and kidneys, all of which shut down during the past several weeks. On Saturday, he slipped into a coma, and the life-support machines were removed.

Memorial service Oct. 2
A memorial is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, at St. Elizabeth Church. Arrangements for a private funeral are pending.
During the past few years, Fafara had put his life in order. He'd reconnected with a long-lost daughter in New Mexico, learned he was a grandfather and shared details of his struggle in an effort to help other people stay clean and sober.
There was a time when Fafara was, in every sense of the word, a star. But that was a character who vanished long ago. What remained was a man finding his way one day at a time. He died in a hospital room surrounded by friends who saw in him a strong, spiritual and caring man with no pretense.
"He knew he was dying," Jeff Adler said. "Even with all the tubes running in and out of him, he kept his humor up until the end, talking about getting a good steak dinner the day he got out. He was OK with what was going to happen.
"He wasn't a business success, and he certainly had turmoil in his life," Adler said. "But he accepted life on life's terms, and he was a generous person. He always looked on the bright side."
His role on "Leave it to Beaver," which aired from 1957 to 1963, made Fafara a celebrity. In a December 2002 story in the Oregonian, he described his life a "blessing and a curse." He remembered walking around with $16,000 in his pocket but discovered that fame was even more powerful than money. He wondered whether his friends liked him because of who he was or what he was.
Break-ins for drugs In the early '80s, he started breaking into California pharmacies for drugs. He was arrested after his seventh robbery and sent to jail. When he got out, he worked as a roofer, waiter and janitor. He drifted into dealing drugs, and the profits supported his habit.
He and his girlfriend took a bus to Portland. Within an hour after the bus pulled into the Portland depot, Fafara and his girlfriend rented a motel room, shot up heroin and crashed. The plan was to get high one last time and then go make something of life.
Instead the addiction took hold, and the two of them lived in the motel for two years. He lost nearly everything. His parents, the last people who really cared about him, were dead. He'd alienated his siblings, who washed their hands of him.
About the only thing he had left was "Whitey." His screen name was always good for a drink or drugs. He'd tell people that he'd been on "Leave It to Beaver," but he'd lost most of his teeth and weighed less than 130 pounds, and hardly anyone would believe him. To prove his background, he'd tell them stories about the show and the actors, what it was like behind the scenes.
In the summer of 1995, he wanted the pain to end and prayed for help. He checked in at a detox center, stayed for two weeks and graduated to a clean-and-sober house for drunks and addicts. He lived there for two years.
"Most people stayed a year, but I figured I needed a double dose," Mr. Fafara recalled in the story. "I haven't had a drink since Aug. 22, 1995. I don't know why it took. I should be dead. I had three overdoses in two months and was hanging on for dear life. My associates, most of them are gone. I know they didn't want to go, but they did."
His friends remember Fafara as a gentle soul.
"There were seven of us there at his bedside in the hospital," Bentley said. "We were all holding hands. He was a good man who had the ability to see beyond people's sordid pasts and see the good in everyone. He will be missed."

Brett44 09-29-03 05:24 AM


Originally posted by Rypro 525
actually, I think Whitey was his name
Are you serious or are you working the dreaded double-sarcasm?

Brett

immortal_zeus 09-29-03 06:28 AM


Originally posted by Brett44
Are you serious or are you working the dreaded double-sarcasm?

Brett

Unfortunately, he was serious. :D

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The Antipodean 11-20-03 10:55 AM

...A nice little follow-up on "Whitey's" final days, I thought it was a good little column. A shame the guy's life became a punchline to so many though.


Friends, strangers help 'Whitey' rest in peace
Margie Boule, The Oregonian
11/20/03

W hen Stanley Fafara died on Sept. 20 in the hospital up at Oregon Health & Science University, it made the news.

Stanley was, after all, a celebrity. Or at least he had been as a kid. Stanley was the sweet-faced troublemaker who played "Whitey" on the old TV show "Leave It to Beaver."

The kid stars who've risen to fame and then fallen into drugs, crime and early death are legion. Stanley Fafara had decades of struggle in his life. But eight years ago in Portland he got clean for good, and his friend Jeff Adler says he never once fell off the wagon after that. "He was a nice, kindhearted, very sweet person," says Jeff. "He was a Web designer. And he never relapsed, and never looked back." Almost until his death at the age of 53, Jeff says, "he did things for the community. He volunteered a lot."

Jeff isn't saying Stanley had a great life in his last few years. "He did have financial problems. But that was because his health was failing." Stanley had problems with his liver and suffered from hepatitis C he'd picked up when he used drugs. He died of complications after hernia surgery.

But Stanley was not down-and-out when he died, Jeff says. He had a lot of good friends. "We went out to dinner, to lunch. We went places together, we talked to each other a lot," Jeff says. "He loved to talk about religion and politics."

Jeff says Stanley believed if he hadn't become clean and sober, he never would have learned he was the father of a young woman in New Mexico. The child was the product of a fling Stanley had years ago, when he was hanging around rock groups such as Paul Revere and the Raiders. The girl's mother never told Stanley about his child. But after Stanley got straight, he made himself accessible to fans of the old "Leave It to Beaver" show, answering their e-mail questions and sharing stories.

"A fan contacted him and said, 'I think you have a daughter,' " Jeff says. "He went to New Mexico, they did a DNA test, and that proved it. And they came to really love each other." Sometimes, Jeff says, when the two men were driving around, "he'd pick up the cell phone and talk to her for 20 minutes. He'd always end with 'I love you.' "

But when Stanley died, stories traveled around the world emphasizing the dark years of his life. "Those stories upset me," Jeff says. "I knew Stanley for six years. I never knew him when he was using. I only knew a good man, a good friend. All these stories, all these Web sites, they made him out to be an ugly person. He was the opposite."

Jeff and other friends were at Stanley's side when he died.

Stanley had straightened out his life, but he died without money. None of his friends or his daughter had funds to pay for a funeral or burial.

Two weeks after his death, someone at OHSU called the Rev. James M. Colb at St. Elizabeth's Catholic church. "I personally never met him," says Father Colb. "They had called me to give him last rites, but I was in the middle of a Mass. They got somebody else."

Still, Father Colb took responsibility for the burial of the man the world knew as "Whitey." He contacted the Family Memorial Mortuary in Portland. "The director is a very good person," Father Colb says.

Even at cut-rate prices, however, a burial and funeral can run into thousands of dollars. Stanley wasn't a member of their parish -- he wasn't even Catholic -- but the people of St. Elizabeth's paid for everything.

Father Colb told parishioners at a Mass that Stanley had died without funds. "Before I was even out of the Mass, somebody had put money in my pocket," he says. Others added more.

St. Elizabeth's held a service, organized a funeral, and then ensured Stanley was given a burial at the Pioneer Cemetery in Redland. "We buried him with dignity," says Father Colb. "I think you do that for anybody, whether they're rich and famous or poor. . . . You celebrate the occasion, you honor the person, you give them a Christian burial."

Of course, it's not often the church has to pay all the costs. Still, Father Colb has been known to do it in the past for indigent patients who died at the hospital. Chances are St. Elizabeth's will help out again in the future.

"It's one of the nicest humanitarian things I've ever seen," says Jeff.

Jeff has talked to Stanley's daughter in New Mexico. He contacted the agents of Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers, who played Wally and the Beaver on the old TV show. "Tony was heartbroken. . . . I never got a call back from Jerry."

Jeff has opened a bank fund to raise funds to give back to the church, for use in similar situations in the future. He's also raising money to put a headstone on Stanley's grave. "I want something put up that has his name and says 'Whitey.' He would have liked that. Except for his years after he found his daughter, doing that show was the happiest time of his life."

Fans of "Whitey," or anyone who wants to contribute, can make a deposit to account 0932779129 at any branch of Washington Mutual Bank. Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; [email protected]


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