Tony Dow’s son says the actor is still alive, despite mistakenly being announced dead by his wife.

Dow, who played Wally Cleaver in the iconic sitcom Leave It To Beaver, is under hospice care in his “last hours”, Christopher Dow told Fox News Digital.

“This is a difficult time,” he explained. “Yes, he is still alive, but in his last hours; under hospice care.”

The update comes after Dow’s wife, Lauren Shulkind, mistakenly announced his death in a recent statement. According to TMZ, Shullkind was “very distraught” after being led to believe that her husband had passed away.

“Tony was a beautiful soul – kind, compassionate, funny and humble,” Shullkind wrote in a post on Dow’s Facebook page. “It was truly a joy to just be around him. His gentle voice and unpretentious manner was immediately comforting and you could not help but love him. The world has lost an amazing human being, but we are all richer for the memories that he has left us.”

In a later update, a post on the page read: “This morning Tony’s wife Lauren, who was very distraught, had notified us that Tony had passed and asked that we notify all his fans. As we are sure you can understand, this has been a very trying time for her. We have since received a call from Tony’s daughter-in-law saying that while Tony is not doing well, he has not yet passed. Tony’s son Christopher and his daughter-in-law Melissa have also been by his side comforting him, and we will keep you posted on any future updates.”

In May this year, Dow announced that his liver cancer, which he’d been diagnosed with years before, had returned.

Leave It To Beaver, which centred on a 1950s suburban family, ran for six seasons between 1957 and 1963. The sitcom centred on a misbehaving boy called Beaver, his brother Wally, their friend Eddie, and their parents Ward and June.

Dow returned to the franchise for the ’80s TV movie Still The Beaver, as well as the series The New Leave It To Beaver, in which he directed five episodes and wrote one.

Later in his career, he also directed episodes of The New Lassie, Coach, Babylon 5, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Some of his other acting roles included appearances in General Hospital, Lassie and Murder, She Wrote.

In May 2020, Ken Osmond, who played Wally Cleaver’s best friend, Eddie Haskell, passed away at the age of 76.