Update: Tony Dow has passed, and may God rest his soul.

Earlier: Tony Dow, who is still with us, lived as full of a life as his strength and luck and spirit allowed. 77 years worth. It’s dismaying that the poor guy’s deathwatch has become the most newsworthy or attention-getting thing that Dow has generated since costarring in Leave It To Beaver in the late ’50s and early ’60s.

I’d like to think that if Dow is conscious and checking his smart phone (and people facing the final slumber occasionally do that — they’ll suddenly wake up and start chatting or picking up the phone) that he’ll get a laugh out of the headlines.

Billy Wilder-like epitaph: “If you’re having a hard time and life is leaking out of you like sand, it’s important to remember than not that many people care. Unless, of course, your death is announced prematurely and therefore inaccurately, in which case the whole world will wake up and pay attention…the heartless so-and-sos.”