A Conversation with Paul Petersen

Child star, pop singer, writer, spokesman and child rights activist Paul Petersen has many talents. A good chunk of America watched Paul grow up on “The Donna Reed Show” from age 12 to 20 (1958-1966) on ABC every Thursday night playing Jeff Stone. He became the dreaded Bubble Gum Star, complete with hit records, screaming fans, fast cars and faster women. He had a lot of fun in an era when you could understand the words to popular music and sex couldn’t kill you.

He worked quite a bit before the Donna Reed Show, rising up from the debacle of being a Fired Mouse at age 9 to perform in national commercials, then gradually moving into more important roles on classics like “Playhouse 90,” “Lux Video Theater,” and “Ford Theater.” These led to movies, and by 1957 he co-starred in the much-loved “Houseboat” with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, which led directly to The Donna Reed Show.

After the eight year, 276 episode ‘run’ of The Donna Reed Show he worked on a string of movies and television shows (“Happiest Millionaire,” “Journey to Shiloh,” “Time For Killing,” “Something for a Lonely Man,” “Gidget Grows Up” and more, but each year the work grew less and less. The handwriting was on the wall. He made some terrible choices in his 20’s…drugs, alcohol, bad people and worse associations…and eventually realized that Mickey Rooney’s advice (“Get out of town for at least 25 years, Paul”) was absolutely correct. There is little room in Hollywood for “former kid stars.” He made the move back to Connecticut and began a new adventure. Simon & Schuster gave him a chance to prove himself as a writer, and after 16 published books, he considers himself an author…when he's not being an advocate for working children everywhere they labor.

A Minor Consideration- his not-for-profit organization actually began as a book, but the needs of the kids he grew up with and admired soon showed him that it was more important to actually DO something about the problems rather than just collect and record the stories. The death by suicide of Rusty Hamer (“The Danny Thomas Show”) actually started the organization in January 1990. At the beginning it was just his wife, Rana Platz-Petersen, RN, the current Business Representative of Local 767, IATSE, Studio First Aid, and him. Their early interventions were successful and gradually they drew other “formers” into the foundation. Today there are more than 600 former kid stars involved with AMC. They are all in “Trivial Pursuit.”

A partial list of the accomplishments of AMC can be found on the website, www.minorcon.org. AMC is pursuing an ambitious legislative program with successful landmark legislation passed in five states, and is committed to ending the exemption to federal child labor standards suffered by children in the Entertainment Business found in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The rules for working children should be the same everywhere, and their protection a societal guarantee.

All of us have read the Disclaimer at the end of movies that says, “No animal was killed or injured in the making of this film.” AMC thinks that sort of Disclaimer ought to apply to children, too. Don’t you?

The very same character traits that resulted in Paul being Fired from The Mickey Mouse Club (for Conduct Unbecoming a Mouse) back in 1955 are, for better or worse, still present in the man he has become, turning 65 years old and now known as a leading advocate for the rights of working children. Time Magazine calls him “the predatory spokesman for kid actors” and rightly so, because when there is “trouble” he shows up.

Paul currently the AFTRA Chair of the Young Performers Committee, a credentialed Delegate at the United Nations for the World Safety Organization charged with improving the welfare of 250 million children who go to work everyday, a past Board-member of SAG and a sitting National and Local Board Member of AFTRA. He sits on the Board of the Fender Museum, and the Center for Improved Child Caring, as well as the American Foundation for Drug Prevention, and the Child Labor Coalition.

Amazingly, Paul Petersen is the Three Wise Girls guest caller on June 3, 2010 at noon Est. He will be talking with co-hosts Dori DeCarlo, Debbie Barth and Linda Alexander about his amazing accomplishments. The link to the website and chat room is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/threewisegirls and the call in number is 347.994.3835. Join us and be part of the conversation.