Exclusive: Larry Mathews on Sneaking Cigarettes, Dick Van Dyke & Sharing a Birthday With Rose Marie
“Oh, Ritchie!” was a common response of the overprotective Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) to her adorable son played by then-6-year-old Larry Mathews on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66). Mathews, who turns 69 on Aug. 15, loved and learned a lot from his iconic TV family.
“Look at the people I had around me to basically grow up with — Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, John Rich, our director Jerry Paris. I mean, all these people were iconic. And Morey Amsterdam, for heaven’s sakes, they were all geniuses at their field,” Mathews reflects when we chat with him over the phone. “As a kid they’re just people — friends, family — that you don’t think about in that way. But then as I grew older, I started to grasp the situation … I still have to say to myself that that was real, and it wasn’t a big dream.”
An off-camera moment with executive producer Sheldon Leonard. CBS via Getty Images
Growing up in Burbank, Larry was one of seven children (he was No. 6, but there is a 14-year difference between the oldest and the youngest) and the only sibling who showed an interest in acting, although his parents were musicians. “There’s that one in the family that just has to be out in front of everything and just getting attention. So I guess that was me. I don’t know why. But anyway, I just loved mimicking stuff I saw on TV,” he shares. “I would imitate Alvin [the chipmunk]. And all kinds of other stuff that I would watch and do.”
Larry credits his local mailman for discovering his talents, as he would watch him daily doing his antics. One day the mailman approached Larry’s mother and encouraged her to get him into acting, providing the name of a woman who taught acting lessons to children.
“My mom actually turned to me and said, ‘Look, would you like to go do this? You can just pretend you’re somebody else and act out being a different person.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why not? Sounds like fun to me. What do I know?’ And so I did.”
Eventually they sent him for an interview with Carl Reiner, and the rest is history. Mathews was cast to play Ritchie Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, opposite his TV parents Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, who he praises.
Everett Collection
“There was actually a picture of Dick and Mary holding me one day when we were doing the warmup before we started shooting. And being around them and having them to make me calm down and tell me it was just part of what we do. That helped,” Mathews shares, about being a kid and calming his fears. “Also the fact that they kind of nurtured me and got me through the fact of having an audience and the timing of comedy when you knew you were going to say something that was funny and you had to just wait for the audience … they all made it very easy and very comfortable.”
His closest friend on the set, however, was Rose Marie, who played Sally Rogers. The two actually shared the same birthday — Aug. 15 — and often celebrated together.
“Rose and I were very, very close. Our families were very, very close. I mean, way after the show — she lived out near me in Van Nuys, and we had the Italian connection going on, and we just became very close,” he shares. “She truly was a very close aunt in terms of the family, her daughter, her husband, who unfortunately died during the middle of the show, but we were very close and remained very close till the end. And we would see each other here and there. As she got older, maybe not as often, but we would do things like appearances or autographs, reunion stuff. Right before Rose passed [on Dec. 28, 2017], I was at the screening of her documentary, and she kind of came over and she just gave me a big hug and a kiss, and she says, ‘I just love you so much, and I’ve always loved you, and you’re just such a special person, and I’m so glad you came for this, and I’m so glad you’ve been in my life.’ And I repeated the same thing to her, obviously. And then she died a few months later, so that was a really special moment we got to share. But with the birthdays, every year we would send each other birthday cards.”
After the sitcom, Mathews finished high school and went on to UCLA, eventually working behind the camera on shows like Soap and Benson, which led to a career in post-production sales.
Karen Ruud
Earlier this year he reunited with Van Dyke for his 98 Years of Magic TV celebration. There he ran into Dick’s son as well. “Barry Van Dyke reminded me about Kent cigarettes, one of our sponsors,” Mathews laughs. “On the living room table in the Petrie household was a cigarette holder, and they had it filled with Kent cigarettes. And Barry said, ‘You remember how we used to go steal the cigarettes, and we would go out back and sit there and smoke and nobody would know?’”
It was just one of many cherished memories he holds dear.
Fans of Mathews can catch up with him and enjoy a celebrity-guided tour as part of the Great Oregon Wine Tour of Willamette Valley. “I’m a big wine guy,” Mathews shares. He’s also traveling to a few nostalgia events this year and will take part in “The Kids of Desilu Studios” event at Indian Wells Resort Hotel in Palm Springs on Sunday, Sept. 8, which is open to fans.
Remind 
Where Are They Now? Child Stars and Teen Idols
June 2024
What happened to those teen idols and child stars we swayed to, swooned over and watched as they grew up (while we grew up as well)?
Buy This Issue