Wally Cox - Personal Life

Personal Life

During the 1960s and into the 1970s, Cox became frustrated by his being typecast as a prim, polite bookworm (or birdwatcher, or accountant), and protested in vain to reporters and interviewers that he was nothing like Peepers. He was physically quite strong, hiked and rode a motorcycle, and was a master electrician. In a 1950s article on Cox's "Mr. Peepers" TV show, Popular Science Magazine reported that Cox kept a small workshop in his dressing room. (Cox's Hollywood Squares colleague, former Hollywood Squares "square-master" Peter Marshall, recalled in his memoir, Backstage With The Original Hollywood Square, that Cox installed and maintained all the wiring in his own home.) Such misperceptions no doubt contributed to the sarcastic and peevish personality that Cox displayed as a comedian; they might also have helped inspire the character of Underdog, whose "Shoe-Shine Boy" persona, in the animated cartoons, reflected the kinds of roles Cox was often given.

TV viewers did, however, get to see a glimpse of Cox's physicality on an episode of I've Got a Secret transmitted on May 11, 1960, in which he and host Garry Moore ran around on stage assembling furniture while the panel was blindfolded. A rare glimpse of Cox's athletic build can be seen in the Mission: Impossible pilot, when he works as a safecracker in a tight, sleeveless t-shirt.

On the June 14, 1976, installment of The Tonight Show, actor Robert Blake spoke of how much he missed his good friend Cox, who was described as being adventuresome and athletic. Cox married three times, to Marilyn Gennaro, Milagros Tirado, and Patricia Tiernan, and was survived by his third wife and two children.