John Eimen, a child actor in the 1950s and ’60s who appeared on such TV shows as Leave It to Beaver, McKeever and the Colonel and The Twilight Zone, has died. He was 76.
Eimen died Friday of prostate cancer at his home in Mukilteo, Washington, his family announced. He only learned of his cancer diagnosis in September.
After showing up on episodes of Leave It to Beaver, Bachelor Father, The Rebel, Have Gun — Will Travel, Wagon Train, The Untouchables and Lawman, the red-haired, freckle-faced Eimen was hired for a proposed 1961 TV drama from Desilu Productions called Dr. Kate, starring Jane Wyman.
“It seemed that a big break had come my way when I was chosen to play her son Tommy in the series’ pilot,” he recalled. “With a sponsor in place, this show had the possibility to run for many years, considering Ms. Wyman’s status as an Academy Award-winning actress. However, she backed out of the deal, claiming dissatisfaction with the proposed ‘after-primetime’ schedule slot in the channel lineup.”
While the series with Wyman never materialized, the pilot did air as a 1960 episode of CBS’ Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. “I still get small residual checks from that show, from time to time,” he noted a few years ago.
With Dr. Kate through, Eimen was available to portray Cadet Monk Roberts, a student at a military school, on the 1962-63 NBC sitcom McKeever and the Colonel, starring Scott Lane and Allyn Joslyn as the title characters. (The series, however, lasted just 26 episodes.)
Born in Chicago on Oct. 2, 1949, Eimen was discovered in his Los Angeles-area classroom by an agent who was a friend of his first-grade teacher.
He started acting at age 6, and his TV debut came in October 1957 as a classmate of Theodore Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) on the first episode of CBS’ Leave It to Beaver. He returned for other installments of that series, which ran six seasons through 1963.
In 1962, he played one of the neighborhood kids on the Twilight Zone episode “The Fugitive,” starting J. Pat O’Malley and Susan Gordon. Meanwhile, he also was known for his appearances, complete with a milk mustache, in national print ads for Carnation.
Eimen’s résumé included the 1965 Connie Stevens film Never Too Late and episodes of The Lloyd Bridges Show, Wendy & Me and, for his final onscreen credit, a 1967 installment of Petticoat Junction.
Eimen said he suffered no emotional scars when acting parts became scarce as he grew older. He became a singer, guitarist and songwriter and moved to Japan, where he got married. He spent more than 10 years teaching English and performing in clubs and on Japanese TV before he and his family returned to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, settling in West Seattle and then in Mukilteo.
Aided by his fluent Japanese, he served for 25 years as a flight attendant on international routes for a U.S. airline before retiring at age 71 in 2020.
Survivors include his wife of 51 years, Midori; his sons, Daniel and Chris; and his grandsons, Lucas and Oliver. A memorial service is being planned.
