He died at 73, of colorectal cancer.
He had a terrible childhood. His aunt was his “stage mother” and treated him with great physical and mental cruelty. He said she would take him off set and beat him if he blew a line. Long ago I saw him on an “Oprah” show about troubled former child stars and he said he harbored so much anger over his lost childhood that he often fantasized about climbing a tower (ala Charles Whitman) and shooting people. Not long after I saw him signing autographs at a memorabilia show and stayed far away from him.
But his later life was reportedly a good one, serving as a youth counselor in Florida, and putting his anger behind him.
Poor guy was stuck to that role, like Jethro. And by the time the series ended, he just about had facial hair, and had to wear the stupid coveralls.
This hit home. My dad wrote for his show. Jay and I went
to the same orthodontist and I was proud to have my picture
taken with him at a church bazaar.
He was already too old (or big) for the role when he was cast. In the comic books, Dennis looks like he’s around three.
Holy smokes, he’s only 2 years younger than me. When that show came out, I remember regarding it as a show for little kids, and never watched it.
MAD magazine published what may be all time favorite one-panel cartoon.
Dennis is walking into the kitchen holding a human skull. He tells his mom, “Look what I found in Mr. Wilson’s head!”
Brilliant! Got an image?
Let’s hope this works. Here you go! It’s on Xitter, though.
I always wondered whether it meant Dennis was a murderer, or merely happened upon a crime scene and took home a trophy.
Maybe your dad wrote the only DtM I remember: Dennis, for some reason, partially rotates a street sign, and a hole for a pool gets dug in the wrong yard. I’m cursed to remember the stupidest things.
It did! 
I like to think he got tried as an adult.
It doesn’t sound familiar. 
It would have been bizarrely appropriate if the star of the television show based on the other Dennis the Menace cartoon had died on the same day.
For those of you who don’t understand this, look up the two cartoons called Dennis the Menace. Two cartoons with the same name appeared on the same day. Neither one had inspired the other. Unfortunately for the joke I’m trying to make, the other cartoon never had a television show based on it.
At first, I thought you were referring to these cartoons, where the captions were switched:
Far Side & Dennis the Menace’s Caption Swap Created Surreal Genius
My favorite Dennis the Menace stories in comic books (not the newspaper) are:
(a) the one where his two teenage babysitters are listening to “cool jazz” on their portable record player, and he’s imagining what the instruments must look like from their comments (e.g., “Mighty hot licks on that liquorice stick (clarinet)!” and “Play that slush pump (trombone)!”)
(b) Dennis’s school teacher orders that everyone have a “quiet time,” but he doesn’t want to. So he goes outside and is riding on a swing when a cop comes up and asks why he’s all alone.
DENNIS: My teacher and the other kids are inside lying down. I don’t know why.
COP: (freaking out) What?!? They must be ASPHYXIATED!!!
DENNIS: Yeah. Whatever that means.
The cop calls emergency services and hilarity ensues. 
The “real” Dennis the Menace. had it even worse. The cartoonist Hank Ketcham (who looked just like the TV dad) was a monster. When Dennis Ketcham’s mom (Alice) died of a drug overdose when he was just 12, his dad didn’t tell him she died until she was buried. Three weeks later his dad sent him off to boarding school and moved to Switzerland with his new wife. As a US Marine, Dennis came back from Vietnam with PTSD
I watched the show when it was new on TV, but I never really got the sense that Jay North was the same Dennis the Menace I read in the comic books (which were very different from the daily and Sunday comic strips). I liked the comic books and collected several of them (easy to do, because they got reprinted often).
Jay North later starred in a movie, Maya, that involved an Indian elephant , and was set in India. He later reprised the role in a TV series of the same name. But I can’t recall much about either of them.
I watched because ‘it’s a kids show, you’ll like it’. Irritated the hell out of me that he was so TALL and gangly. And he would just stand there with his arms hanging at his side spouting lines. “Gee Mr. Wilson!” No, not at all like the comic strip Dennis the Menace.
That’s good, because we have seen just how destructive such an upbringing can be in cases such as Anissa Jones, Lindsay Lohan (who does seem to be turning herself around) and even Judy Garland.