Acting Career
Petersen began his show business career at the age of ten as a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. He appeared in the 1958 movie Houseboat with Sophia Loren and Cary Grant, but achieved stardom playing teenager Jeff Stone from 1958 to 1966 on the ABC family television sitcom The Donna Reed Show. Throughout eight seasons and decades of reruns in syndication, The Donna Reed Show became part of American popular culture and, in 1997, Petersen was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award for his role on the series.
After The Donna Reed Show ended, Peterson had a small role as Tony Biddle in the 1967 musical film The Happiest Millionaire. He also appeared in many guest roles, including one as a military officer in the short-lived 1967 ABC western series Custer, with Wayne Maunder in the title role.
Read more about this topic: Paul Petersen
Famous quotes containing the words acting and/or career:
“It especially helps if you know that we’re all faking our adulthood—even your parents and their parents. Beneath these adult trappings—in our president, in our parents, in you and me—lurk the emotions of a child. If we know that only about ourselves, we become infantile; if we understand that about everybody, then we have nothing to be ashamed of—unless, of course, we go around acting like a child and expecting everyone else to act like grownups.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)