`Leave It to Beaver` actor Frank Bank dead

New York: Frank Bank, who played the bumbling bully `Lumpy` Rutherford on the original `Leave It to Beaver` TV show, has died a day after his 71st birthday.

No cause of death has been announced, reported New York Daily News. Known as `Lumpy` for his size and rather dim intellect, Clarence Rutherford was one of the several caricatures who made `Leave It to Beaver` perhaps the most memorable teenage TV show of the late 50s era. He was introduced in the first season as the local bully, who tormented Wally (Tony Dow) and Beaver (Jerry Mathers) Cleaver. Bank was born in a Los Angeles hospital corridor during an air raid drill in 1942 and became an actor at an early age - in one of his first roles he played actor Will Rogers in the 1952 biopic `The Story of Will Rogers`. In addition to his role in the Beaver series from 1957 to 1963, Bank reprised his role as the dim-witted bully for 1983 TV movie `Still the Beaver` and also the revival `The New Leave It To Beaver` series from 1983 to 1989. He also had a cameo in the 1997 movie, `Leave It to Beaver`. After Beaver ended, Bank became a bond broker but appeared on American panel show Hollywood Squares and game show Family Feud in the 1980s. Jerry Mathers, who played Cleaver on the hit sitcom, took to his official Facebook page to pay tribute to his former co-star, writing, "I was so sad to hear today of the passing of my dear friend and business associate Frank Bank, who played Lumpy on Leave it to Beaver. He was a character and always kept us laughing. My deepest condolences to Frank`s family." PTI