TV • 1955

Professional Father

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Professional Father is a 1955 CBS situation comedy television series starring Stephen Dunne as Dr. Tom Wilson, a child psychologist successful with his patients but less than effective with his own family. Barbara Billingsley, two years before she was cast as the concerned mother in Leave It to Beaver, played Tom's wife, Helen Wilson.Beverly Washburn, later in the Walt Disney film Old Yeller and in CBS's The New Loretta Young Show, starred as daughter Kathryn "Kit" Wilson. Ted Marc portrayed the son, Tom Wilson, Jr., or "Twig", who played for a baseball team called "The Beavers", ironic in view of Billingsley's later June Cleaver role. Billingsley's characters on both Professional Father and Leave It to Beaver had an aunt named Martha. Phyllis Coates and Joseph Kearns played the neighbors, Madge and Fred Allen. Ann O'Neal starred as the housekeeper "Nana", and Arthur Q. Bryan played Mr. Boggs, the handyman. The series was created and produced by Harry Kronman, directed by Sherman Marks, and partly written by Bob Schiller. In the May 14 episode, Larry J. Blake appeared as a neighbor, Donald Peterson, whom Dr. Wilson invites on a fishing trip. Blake had the distinction of having been the first actor to portray Adolf Hitler in a film.