Geez, Wally, You're an Abstract Artist Now

He is, and likely forever will be, best known as good old Wally Cleaver, the big brother who had to bail out a goofball sibling facing one dilemma after another on the classic TV series Leave it to Beaver. For the last dozen years, though, Tony Dow has been carving out a new career, as a sculptor with pieces that have shown at numerous venues, including what is arguably the world's premier art museum—the Louvre in Paris.

Today, more than 30 of Dow's pieces in bronze, steel, and wood go on display closer to home at the Debilzan Gallery in Laguna Beach, California, and they could fetch several thousand dollars each from collectors. But despite his respected reputation as a sculptor, Dow acknowledges there could be as many people wanting to rub shoulders with the Beav's brother as see his art. "I think it's hard, especially with the Wally image, to be taken seriously at pretty much anything other than that," says the 67-year-old. Read the AP's full profile here. (More Tony Dow stories.)