DO you mean this Stephen Talbot? http://www.salon.com/aug97/mothers/be…
BY STEPHEN TALBOT | when Richard Nixon ordered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia in April 1970, I was standing in front of the New Haven, Conn., courthouse, surrounded by National Guard soldiers who had been issued live ammunition. Like every other young radical on the East Coast, I had come to New Haven to protest the arrest of Black Panther leader Bobby Seale. We were smoldering with discontent, and our mood had not been improved by a dose of police pepper gas the night before.
From the standpoint of ensuring domestic tranquillity, this was an inauspicious moment for Nixon to launch his invasion. When Tom Hayden suddenly announced what was happening in Cambodia, 20,000 of us decided in a burst of participatory democracy to return to our campuses and organize a national student strike. Forget New Haven, we would paralyze the country! At my own nearby college the next day, my friends and I kept interrupting a Grateful Dead concert to urge our fellow students to boycott classes for the rest of the semester. Our appeals met with success, but, to my eternal humiliation, a large poster appeared in the student dining hall mocking my efforts. It read, “Strike? Gee, Beav, I don’t know.”
I had been outed, publicly shamed: a long-haired New Leftist in regulation denim work shirt and bell-bottomed blue jeans exposed as a former child actor in “Leave it to Beaver,” the quintessential suburban sitcom. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I was Gilbert Bates, Beaver’s friend. “Gee, Beav, I don’t know” was my signature line. There. I’ve admitted it. They can’t hurt me anymore.
From 1958 until 1963, I appeared in more than 50 episodes of “Leave it to Beaver.” I was the blond kid with big ears who usually manipulated the gullible Beaver Cleaver into committing some minor transgression. I would then disappear while Beaver was caught and punished. “I may be a dirty rat,” Gilbert acknowledged, “but I’m not a dumb rat.”
Over the years there have been other embarrassing incidents, but I’ve learned to endure them. In 1980, while making “Broken Arrow,” a documentary for public television on nuclear weapons accidents, my camera crew and I were detained by the Navy and the FBI confiscated our film. In the end, the government backed down, but for several days they threatened to prosecute us for trespassing and — incredibly — espionage.
….For years, I’ve figured I had to atone politically and aesthetically for appearing in “Leave it to Beaver.” I’m still not off the hook, but I’m beginning to think maybe I could get away with pleading no contest to a cultural misdemeanor.
Aug. 22, 1997
Stephen Talbot is a documentary filmmaker and a frequent contributor to the documentary series “Frontline.” He is the brother of Salon editor David Talbot.
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