Leave it to Beaver actor dies: Frank Bank, known as Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford on the sitcom Leave it to Beaver, died at the age of 71.
He may have played a somewhat dim-witted bully on Leave it to Beaver, but he was reading up on stocks and bonds during his breaks on set. Frank Bank became a successful broker, earning $300,000 a year within three years of starting in the financial sector in the 1970s, he told People in a 1998 interview.
He told People he gave up acting, in part because, “I didn’t want to be like George Reeves, who could only be Superman.” He didn’t want to be typecast as the beefy bully. In 2002, Bank published his memoirs, “Call me Lumpy.”
Bank reprised the role in the 1983 TV movie Still the Beaver and the follow-up series The New Leave It to Beaver, which ran from 1983 to 1989.
Bank made occasional appearances on TV before giving up acting and becoming a stockbroker. His clients included former Leave it to Beaver co-stars Jerry Mathers and Barbara Billingsley.
Billingsley told People in 1998: “Frank is certainly brighter than Lumpy Rutherford, and a very good stockbroker.”
A spokesman for the Hillside Memorial Park in Los Angeles says Bank died Saturday. No other details were provided.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
