<P> This tall, bald and usually bespectacled character actor often portrayed pompous, prissy, and / or imperious figures . He made appearances on The Jack Benny Program as a salesman and a barber, and on NBC's Happy as a hotel manager . He had a brief role in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds (1963) as Mitch's (Rod Taylor) neighbor who advises Melanie (Tippi Hedren) that Mitch has gone to Bodega Bay for the weekend . He played a larger role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), as a physician in the "book - end" sequences added to the beginning and end of this film after its original previews . </P> <P> In Billy Wilder's 1957 film adaptation of Charles Lindbergh's The Spirit of St. Louis, Deacon portrayed the chairman of the Columbia Aircraft Corp, Charles A. Levine, who, in February 1927, refused to sell Lindbergh his company's recently acquired Bellanca monoplane for Lindbergh's trans - atlantic flight unless his company could choose the pilot . </P> <P> His best - known roles are milksop Mel Cooley (Producer of "The Alan Brady Show") on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961--1966) and Fred Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver (1957--1963), although Deacon played Mr. Baxter in the 1957 Beaver pilot episode "It's a Small World". He co-starred as Tallulah Bankhead's butler in a classic episode of The Lucy - Desi Comedy Hour called "The Celebrity Next Door". Deacon played Roger Buell on the second season of TV's The Mothers - in - Law (1967--1969), having replaced Roger C. Carmel in the role . He played "Principal' Jazz - Bow' Conroy" in The Danny Thomas Show (1958). He also appeared in the 1960 Perry Mason episode The Case of the Red Riding Boots as Wilmer Beaslee . </P> <P> In Carousel (1956), the film adaptation of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein stage musical, Deacon had a bit role as the policeman who admonishes Shirley Jones (Julie) and John Dehner (Mr. Bascombe) about Gordon MacRae (Billy Bigelow) in the famous "bench scene". It was one of the few films in which he did not wear glasses, as were his roles in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), and the 1954 costumer Désirée, where he played Jean Simmons' elder brother, an 18th - century Marseilles silk merchant . Philadelphia - native Deacon played the role of Morton Stearnes' butler, George Archibald, whose courtroom testimony is a turning point in The Young Philadelphians (1959), starring Paul Newman . He played an imbibing Justice of the Peace, Reverend Zaron, in the classic 1957 Budd Boetticher - directed western Decision at Sundown . </P>

Who played mr rutherford on leave it to beaver
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