Stephen Talbot

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Stephen Talbot
Stephen Talbot is an American award-winning TV reporter, writer, and producer and TV child actor of the 1950s and 1960s.
Born	Stephen Henderson Talbot February 28, 1949 (1949-02-28) (age 59) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other name(s)	Steven Talbot
Spouse(s)	Pippa Gordon

Stephen Henderson Talbot (born February 28, 1949, in Los Angeles, California) is an American award-winning TV reporter, writer, and producer and TV child actor of the 1950s and 1960s.

Talbot had a minor career playing minors between 1959 and 1963. He is best known for the early TV sit-com Leave It to Beaver, in which he had the semi-regular role as Gilbert Bates, best friend of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Jerry Mathers). As an adult, Talbot turned from acting to journalism and did not dwell on his LITB heritage, turning down numerous Leave it to Beaver "reunion" offers in order to be taken seriously as a reporter. But lately he has begun to reflect on his "Beaver" experience in articles and interviews and even in a recent Frontline documentary, "Diet Wars."

He is an accomplished and award-winning "behind the scenes" contributor to the Public Broadcasting Service and its Frontline series, where most of his energies have been directed.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

Having spent his early prepubescent years in front of the cameras on Leave it to Beaver as Gilbert Bates (56-episodes), Talbot has all but abandoned the character today.

"In the interests of historical accuracy I should say that, yes, Gilbert was a troublemaker and an occasional liar, but my character was certainly no Eddie Haskell -- that leering teenage hypocrite who spoke unctuously to parents ('Well, hello Mrs. Cleaver, and how is young Theodore today?') and venomously to the Beav ('Hey, squirt, take a powder before I squash you like a bug')."! ^[1]

"I have spent my adult life trying to conceal my Leave it to Beaver past or correcting the historical record. Either way the series has become inescapable. When I was a kid, I loved acting; in fact, I badgered my father and mother until they allowed me to work. But how could I have known as an innocent 9-year-old that I was taking part in a television program that would live on for 40 years as an icon for baby boomers? In the early '80s, I turned down an offer to revive my role as Gilbert in a dreadful Beaver reunion series. "I'm trying to establish myself as a documentary filmmaker and an investigative reporter," I explained to the producers. "I can't go back to being Gilbert."! ^[1]

Talbot guest-starred on many TV shows of the period, including Lassie, M Squad, Perry Mason, Wanted: Dead or Alive and The Lucy Show. Talbot appeared in two The Twilight Zone episodes, which guarantees him an immortality in the sci-fi genre. He played the nephew of Dick Clark in the 1960 teen movie Because They're Young.

[edit] Quote

(Gilbert is) is the blond kid with big ears who usually manipulated the
gullible Beaver Cleaver into committing some minor transgression.

[edit] Career

Talbot is the Series Editor for Frontline/World, the international news magazine airing on the PBS series, Frontline. In 2007 he produced, "What's Happening to the News," a 90-min. episode of Frontline's "News War" series. Some of his other Frontline news documentaries include "The Best Campaign Money Can Buy," "Spying on Saddam," "Justice for Sale" with Bill Moyers, and critical biographies of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

In a career of more than 25 years in public television in the USA, Stephen Talbot has reported, written and produced more than thirty documentaries, including two Peabody Award winners, "Broken Arrow" about nuclear weapons accidents and "The Case of Dashiell Hammett." With David Davis, Talbot wrote and directed The Sixties: The Years That Shaped a Generation, a two-hour history special that aired nationally on PBS in 2005, and was based on his earlier film, "1968."

Talbot has also written and co-produced several biographies of noted writers, including Ken Kesey, Carlos Fuentes, Beryl Markham, Maxine Hong Kingston and John Dos Passos.

He recently wrote about Robert Mugabe in an article for the "Frontline/World" web site, "From Liberator to Tyrant." His articles have appeared in many publications, including Salon and the Washington Post Magazine.

[edit] Personal life

Stephen Talbot is the son of lifelong character actor, the late Lyle Talbot, and the brother of journalist David Talbot, editor of Salon.com, and of journalist Margaret Talbot, a staff writer at the The New Yorker.

Stephen Talbot lives in San Francisco and is married to Pippa Gordon. They have two grown children, Dashiell and Caitlin. Talbot named his son Dashiell after San Francisco mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. His daughter Caitlin Talbot is an actress at the American Conservatory of Theater in San Francisco.

Talbot graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1970.

[edit] Select filmography

Stephen Talbot (l) as Gilbert Bates in Leave it to Beaver with Jerry Mathers (c) as "the Beav" and the late Stanley Fafara (r) as Hubert "Whitey" Whitney, circa 1962.

See the complete Stephen Talbot filmography at IMDB