Child stars
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A deadpan, freckle-faced, curly red-haired, highly talented child actor of the late 50s, Rusty Hamer entered films and TV at age 5 and became a precocious TV celebrity the very next year, trading clever quips with volatile top comedian Danny Thomas as his smart-alecky son, Rusty Williams, on the hit sitcom, The Danny Thomas Show (1953), in 1953. The popular sitcom co-starred Jean Hagen as Rusty's level-headed mother, and pretty, pig-tailed Sherry Jackson as his older sister.
Born Russell Craig Hamer on February 15, 1947, in Tenafly, New Jersey, he was the youngest of three sons born to shirt salesman Arthur Walter (who died when Rusty was 6) and former silent screen actress Dorothy Hamer (nee Chretin). Moving to Los Angeles in 1951, Rusty and his brothers, John and Walter, were prodded by the parents to perform in local theatre productions. Rusty learned to recited stories and perform skits at various community for service club and church functions.
Rusty's first on-camera role was a tiny part in the western Fort Ti (1953) as George Montgomery's young nephew and was given a role in an episode of the TV anthology "Fireside Theatre." While spotted in one of his theatre stage shows, Rusty was brought in to test for the Thomas series and won the role of "Rusty Williams." His mother and older brother John Hamer would appear briefly on Rusty's TV show.
Playing a 'second banana' scamp to the well-loved comedy star was no easy task, yet this boy showed an incredibly sharp comedy sense far beyond his years and the show ran a very healthy eleven seasons. During the long run, Rusty appeared only occasionally elsewhere. Seen in an episode of "Four Star Playhouse," he played, alongside the equally delightful young Gigi Perreau, orphan kids under the wing of mushy-hearted Lou Costello in Abbott & Costello's last film together Dance with Me, Henry (1956). Rusty also appeared on various variety shows ("The Red Skelton Show," "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show," "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show") usually in tandem with his beloved TV family.
A major cast change in the series erupted when Hagen asked to leave the show (her character dies) and Jackson grew up and left home for college. Rusty's stepmother and little stepsister, played by Marjorie Lord and Angela Cartwright, respectively, were a delightful addition to the show and contributed greatly to the show's enduring popularity. Performing in 300 plus episodes, Rusty was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his TV work in 1960.
In 1964, and with the end of the TV series, 17-year-old Rusty Hamer, at age 17, found himself out of work for the first time. The talented kid had become an awkward teen and offers dried up immediately. Hoping to branch out into dramatic roles, outside of an isolated appearance on "Green Acres" and appearances reprising his "Rusty Williams" persona, the only work he was able to find in later years were reunion specials and a new, updated sitcom revolving around his old TV family now playing Rusty as a married medical student. Make Room for Granddaddy (1970) not successful, however, and was canceled after the 1970-1971 season. Nothing else came his way although he continued to take acting classes and worked at a messenger service and as a carpenter's apprentice to support himself.
The aimless, embittered young man, left Hollywood for good for Louisiana in 1976 to help care for his Alzheimer's-stricken mother and his life quickly fell apart. Left with no job skills, Rusty had extreme difficulty finding direction, consequently living a wanderlust lifestyle, taking menial jobs that ranged from working on Exxon oil rigs to delivering newspapers to toiling as a short order cook in older brother John's cafe. His poverty-ridden status, so different from his youthful celebrity, caused him to spiral into deep depression and, eventually, alcohol abuse. Increasingly violent and delusional and suffering from chronic back pain, he shot himself to death in his trailer on January 18, 1990. He was only 42.
Chalking up another child star statistic who met a tragic, untimely end, Rusty had the true makings of a terrific comedy actor. Danny Thomas himself once said that Rusty was "the best boy actor I ever saw in my life. He had a great memory . . . great timing and you could change a line on him at the last minute and he came right back with it." It was Hamer's suicide, in fact, that prompted former child actor Paul Petersen to establish his support group A Minor Consideration. The group has been successful in assisting many former child actors with no other work skills to make a positive career transition.- Missouri-born child actor Teddy Infuhr, youngest of four, moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was three and was initially prodded into acting by his mother. A young student at the Rainbow Studios, he was spotted by a talent agent and booked the very first film he went out on with The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942) at the age of 5. Throughout the rest of the 1940s he would find steady roles as mean-spirited tykes, trouble-makers or bullying types, never settling down to one specific studio.
A good portion of this little toughie's work was noticeable yet he also appeared unbilled much of the time. Unable to move into the major child star leagues, he was nevertheless cast in some of the biggest "A" pictures Hollywood had to offer including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Spellbound (1945) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). One of his more oddball roles included the role of Gale Sondergaard's fly-swallowing nephew in The Spider Woman (1943).
Teddy found a recurring role in the "Rusty" canine adventure series (as Squeaky Foley), beginning with The Return of Rusty (1946) and finishing with Rusty's Birthday (1949). He was also one of the bucolic brood in the Ma and Pa Kettle series that was introduced with the classic The Egg and I (1947). He appeared more times in that series (six) than any other of the regular kid actors. In the postwar years he had ostensibly larger parts in The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Fighting Fools (1949), West of El Dorado (1949) and Blondie's Hero (1950) and appeared with western hero Gene Autry a few times.
Outgrowing his adorableness, he did not survive the transition from awkward adolescent to adult, ending his career unbilled as a troubled teen in Blackboard Jungle (1955). Teddy played it smart, however, and found a vocation, graduating from chiropractic school in 1958. Long married to wife Rita who bore him two sons, he had no qualms or regrets about leaving show business.
Teddy continued to be a guest at nostalgia conventions here and there until his death at age 70 on May 12, 2007.