Don Grady, the handsome, put-up middle child of the first 5
seasons of the classic family sitcom My Three Sons, died after a long battle
with cancer on June 27 in Los Angeles at the age of 68.
When it premiered on ABC in 1960, My Three Sons included
veteran actors Fred MacMurray –who, as he aged, did a lot of Disney films and I
Love Lucy’s Fred Mertz, William Frawely (who would be forced out after season
five to due health reasons and replaced for the remainder of the series by
William Demarest). The series chronicled
the life of a widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas, raising
his three sons. The boys were played by Tim Considine, Don Grady and Stanley
Livingston. The early seasons were unique in structure, having no specific
generic type; any episode from one week to the next might be comedic or
dramatic.
After its fifth season, ABC decided that the costs were too
much to produce it in color so the series ended up on CBS for 7 more years –and
in color. There were cast changes as well, Considine did not renew his contract
after a falling-out with executive producer Don Fedderson over his wish to
direct but not co-star in the series. Considine later told Pat Sajak back in
1989 that he was devoted to car racing, which his contract forbade. The character
was written out and along with Meredith MacRae, who was playing his fiancée, after
their wedding in the sixth season opener and is never seen again -though he is mentioned a handful of times during the rest of its run.
Grady became the eldest son, which forced the writers to
create another “brother” to keep the title of the series going. Livingston’s younger
brother Barry, who had joined the show in a recurring role in 1963 as neighbor
Ernie, was then adopted by the Douglas’s (Ernie, it turned out, was a foster
child) and became a main cast member from the 6th season until its
end.
Grady was a life-long musician –he appeared with his own
band The Greefs on the series, and was the drummer for The Yellow Balloon,
whose self-titled song became a minor hit during 1967. After the series ended
in ’72 he pursued his musical career full
time that included music for the Blake Edwards comedy Switch, the theme song
for The Phil Donahue Show and for EFX, a
Las Vegas multimedia stage show which starred Michael Crawford, David Cassidy,
Tommy Tune and Rick Springfield. In the fall of 2008, Grady released Boomer:
JazRokPop, a collection of songs written for and about the baby boomer
generation.
He is survived by his wife Ginny and children Joe and Tessa.
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