Son of OZZIE AND HARRIET Star Recalls Dad’s Storied Hollywood Life

Published: November 28, 2024

Son of OZZIE AND HARRIET Star Recalls Dad’s Storied Hollywood Life

By Movieguide® Contributor

Don DeFore, known for his role as Thorny Thornbury in the ’50s sitcom THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET, left the show at its climax to pursue other ventures. His son, Ron, is exploring his father’s life in a new memoir.

“My dad was only there for five years,” Ron told Fox News Digital. “What he went through is what a lot of actors went through and probably still go through now.”

“If you’ve been a co-star, but not star billing in a TV show like that one, a very popular TV show…he and his agent felt, ‘Hey, you’ve done your dues. You’ve paid your dues. You’re good enough now. Let’s shop around for your own show where you can be the main star,'” Ron continued.

DeFore went on to make two pilots, neither of which went anywhere. “But then what came along was some pretty successful stuff in another part of his career. He was President of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1954,” Ron said. DeFore eventually met with Walt Disney and opened a restaurant in Disneyland.

He later starred in HAZEL, had guest roles in ST. ELSEWHERE and MURDER, SHE WROTE and befriended other Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne.

Ron hopes his new memoir, “Growing Up In Disneyland Second Edition,” will give people a better understanding of who his dad was. DeFore died in 1993 at the age of 80.

“My dad had written a book, but it was never published,” he revealed. “But about 20 years ago, my brother and I started doing presentations that I titled ‘Growing Up in Disneyland,’ which was about my father’s restaurant in Disneyland…But there was so much more we wanted to tell about our father.”

“It dawned on me that my father had this unpublished manuscript that was all about his life, some 800 pages,” Ron continued. “I wanted to share my own experiences of growing up in a celebrity family, but I wanted my dad’s experiences to be told in his own words, too.”

“Growing Up In Disneyland Second Edition” is “about one of America’s beloved Broadway, movie and TV stars–Don DeFore–whose career spanned six decades, told by son, Ron, who also shares his adventures in a Hollywood celebrity family and beyond,” a synopsis reads. “This Second Edition has 25% more content and more than 125 photos. Don DeFore earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame for his supporting role as THORNY in THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET TV series (1952-1957) and played ‘Mr. B’ in the 1960s TV series HAZEL which is still in world-wide syndication on vintage TV channels and available on DVD.”