Jay North, Child Star Who Played ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73

Jay North, who played the well-meaning, trouble-causing protagonist of the popular CBS sitcom “Dennis the Menace” from 1959 to 1963, died on Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Fla. He was 73.

His death was confirmed by Laurie Jacobson, a friend of Mr. North’s for 30 years. The cause was colorectal cancer, Ms. Jacobson said.

Mr. North played the towheaded Dennis Mitchell, who roamed his neighborhood, usually clad in a striped shirt and overalls, with his friends, and often exasperated his neighbor, a retiree named George Wilson, who was played by Joseph Kearns. Herbert Anderson played Dennis’s father, and Gloria Henry played his mother.

Dennis winds up causing lots of trouble, usually by accident.

In one episode, a truck knocks over a street sign, and Dennis and a friend stand it up — incorrectly. Workmen then dig a gigantic hole, meant to be a pool for a different address, in Mr. Wilson’s yard.

The show, which was adapted from a comic strip by Hank Ketcham, presented an idyllic, innocent vision of suburban America as the 1950s gave way to the tumultuous ’60s.

But things were not easy for Mr. North behind the scenes.

Many years after “Dennis the Menace” ended, Mr. North said that his acting success came at the cost of a happy childhood.