Those of us who love classic Disney know that there are many actors that appeared often throughout old Disney films and TV shows. One of these actors is Tim Considine. Tim is probably best known for appearing The Hardy Boys, Spin and Marty and Annette serial segments on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club. He also appeared in the Disney movie, The Shaggy Dog (1959) and The Swamp Fox episodes of the popular Disney anthology series. Considine's best known non-Disney roles include the popular sitcom May Three Sons and a shell-shocked solider in the movie Patton (1970).
The following is a 1957 article from Radio TV Mirror about Tim Considine. There is a certain "gee shucks golly" wholesomeness to this article and it is a bit on the long side. However, it also gives us a great behind the scenes peak at who this Disney star was as a person.
Tim Takes a Spin
By Bud Goode
There's a reason why youthful, appealing Tim Considine was immediately accepted into the hearts of teen-age America, from the first moment he appeared in "Spin and Marty" on Walt Disney's "Mickey Mouse Club", over ABC-TV. Two reasons to be exact - one for the boys and one for the girls. Boys find Tim a regular fellow, a down-to-earth guy who goes for football, baseball and sports cars. Girls swoon over his clean-cut, blue-eyed American-boy good looks - their fan mail most frequently describes Tim as 'a real dreamboat!'
Just sixteen - as of December 31, 1956 - Tim himself would be the first to disclaim that "dreamboat" tag. But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that Tim's a typical American boy. He's at home on a baseball field or a tennis court, in a swimming pool or the gridiron grandstands. And he is no slouch on the dance floor, either. However, these are perfectly normal teen-age accomplishments. It was Tim's ability to act that caught Walt Disney's astute eye. Though Tim had only a handful of motion-picture and TV appearances to his credit, Disney sensed his inherent talent - and signed him to the contract which brought Tim to the delighted attention of teenagers everywhere.
"Tim realizes that much of his present popularity stems from the fact that he really does live the life of a typical American boy. He's also aware that he is growing up in a period when the nation's teenagers are drawing more than their share of criticism because of the way a few of them have been handling their problems. He knows it has never been easy to be a teenager, and that today's fast tempo makes it even more difficult. But like so many of his contemporaries, Tim is making a good adjustment to growing up.
Right now, he's at the age where he insists on the vast difference between "going steady" and "going steadily." His explanation is emphatic: "Going steady! Why that's practically being married. I don't hold with this 'steady' routine at all. Gosh sixteen's too young. 'Going Steadily' on the other hand is a different story. That just means a guy likes a gal, maybe a little more than some of the others. That's natural, isn't it?" he asks with naive simplicity. "After all some girls are smarter than others, or there is something in their personality you like. Or any one of a thousand things."
At present Tim's partial to girls who participate in his interest in sports and cars. If a girl is willing to go to the Pomona time-trails with him and his driver, Gene Curtis of California Motors - and spend a Sunday afternoon discussing double overhead racing cams, direct injection carburation and straight pipes - then she's the girl for him. At least for that Sunday. On the other hand, Tim enjoys other activities, too, such as school dances, movies, hayrides and beach parties. He's the sort of fellow who makes parties come to life. His arrivals are generally greeted with shouts of "here's Tim!" - a sound the signifies that the party now officially has gotten underway.
Even before his sixteenth birthday, Tim's typical-American-boy personality had made him one of the most popular youngsters in Hollywood - and set his mother to hopping, for she was his ready source of transportation. A familiar phrase in the Considine apartment, during Tim's fifteenth year B.D.L. (Before Driver's License), was: "Mom we're having a party at Freddie the Freeloader's house Friday night. How about taking us?" Carmen Considine always obliged, and has laughingly admitted, "I wore out four sets of tires and two cars keeping up with Tim and his friends. I am sure I could have passed any test as a lady bus driver."
Tim's transportation problems were solved when he turned sixteen, since that's the age when California grants a driver's license. Up until then he could only drive with a learner's permit and when accompanied by licensed operator. Today's Tim's car, an Alfa Romeo sportster, in his pride and joy. If there is a lull in any conversation, he is sure to say, "Want to see the latest pictures of my car?"
Like every average Amercian boy, Tim is crazy over cars. But he has the engineer's and mechanic's interest in the overall performance of the automobile, not in top speed for speed's sake. His attitude is: "Sure, speed's alright but what can you do with it in the city? That's where performance counts." Tim proudly points out that his car purrs at thirty-five miles an hour, going forty miles on a gallon of gas.
Tim got his car when he was nearly sixteen, before he was old enough to drive it alone. "I've never met a boy who didn't want to drive," says Mrs. Considine. "Tim was no different. In fact, he had been building model airplanes and automobiles since he was ten.
"We looked upon the sports car as an investment in safety. His working on it with driver-mechanic Gene Curtis served a number of purposes. For one, Tim is natural mechanic, and it gave him something creative to do with his hands. Second, it's a constructive hobby, for he is learning automotive mechanics. Third- and most important - by talking in terms of safety factors and tolerances with Gene, he has been learning the limitations of the car.
"Having been exposed to this car for the past for the past year and having worked closely with his driver in the pits at the Pomona Fairgrounds," she explains, "Tim has learned what his car will do and what it won't do. It isn't as though he had suddenly had it thrust upon him, to learn about it for the first time."
In addition, pride of ownership has helped teach Tim a sense of responsibility. Two weeks before his driver, Gene, was to enter the car in its first competitive event at Pomona, Tim found that he was worried. "Gosh,' he says seriously, "things were piling up on me. I had a chemistry test at school to think about. Though chem is my favorite subject, its rough. And I also had a lot of things to do to the car, like putting in safety belts, putting on the wind screen, painting on my number - 89- and taping up the front end to protect it from So you see, I had a lot of things on my mind. Couldn't sleep maybe even have bitten a nail or two."
But realizing the responsibility was his - and with the help of his mother, who continued to supply transportation for a steeped-up schedule - he managed to cram everything in the last week ("though I was almost late for the starting line"), and he still got an A on his chemistry test.
Though Tim is the grandson of the eminent Pantages theatrical family (his mother is Carmen Pantages), the son of movie producer John Considine and the nephew of columnist Bob Considine, he became an actor quite by chance. For some time, agent Sam Armstrong, a friend of the family, had been insisting that Tim had natural talent. He wanted to suggest Tim's name to Hollywood casting directors, but no one took 'Uncle Sam' seriously. One day, he happily announced that - on his own - he had arranged for Tim to appear in a cereal commercial. Sam's purpose was to give Tim experience before the cameras and see how Tim came across on the screen.
The family good-naturedly went along with the idea. But now as Mrs. Considine admits, "We really shouldn't have been surprised at how well Tim came across on the screen. Though he never expressed a desire to act, he has always had the average child's interest in putting on penny-admission puppet shows or the like.
"The only acting experience I remember he had as a youngster, which might possibly have indicated a theatrical career, was the magic act he put on for us when he was eight. I'll never forget when I came home to find the kitchen covered in raw eggs. It was the only clue I had that my son was interested in performing. When I asked Tim about the broken shells, I learned that him and a young school chum by the name of Bill Gargaro were developing an act. Bill was the magician. Tim his helper. They had been practicing!
"The next day, Tim came to tell me that their magic show was ready, and he wondered if Uncle Rod would let him, and Bill put it on the stage of the Pantages Theater -which at the time was still in the family. I never dreamed Rod would say yes, so I told Tim to go ahead and ask.
"Tim asked. Uncle Rod replied, 'what do you do.'
"Said Tim, 'We're magicians - we'd saw a woman in half.
"Uncle Rod asked, 'what woman?'
"'Oh!' said Tim, 'any woman from the audience.'
"Hiding a smile Uncle Rod agreed. 'Sure, boys you can do your show, but you'd better plan on coming on before the regular audience gets in.'
"I was horrified at Uncle Rod's reaction," Mrs. Considine recalls, "because I had visions of having to round up the entire family in an attempt to fill the theater. Even then I knew it would look empty by contrast with the regular performances, and the poor boys' hearts would be broken. I finally convinced them that they would have a better show in the back yard. The neighbors made a wonderful audience."
Tim himself says, "That was just about the beginning and end of my acting career. We had one routine with steel tubes and empty bottles. You'd hold the tubes to the light, keeping the bottles inside tight with your thumb, and saying 'see the tube is empty.' That's when the bottle slipped off my thumb, breaking on the table. I turned blue." Then after a short pause, Tim says, with a touch of awe in his voice, "By golly - you know - I think Uncle Rod was really willing to let us go on at the Pantages."
It was several years later, of course, that Sam Armstrong approached Mrs. Considine with the prospect of Tim's becoming an actor. "If we'd remembered his earlier interests," she says, "We'd have known that Tim had the ability to act in front of a camera."
Following the cereal commercial, twelve-year-old Tim was taken by Armstrong to read the part for Red Skelton's son in MGM's "The Clown." Even at this date, Tim still hadn't decided to make a career of acting. "I didn't know if I liked acting or not," he recalls, "I was really too young to understand the importance of a featured role with Mr. Skeleton. It was the first big thing I ever had a chance at, and I just didn't know.
"But after the casting interview I began getting nervous. I remember the first day I went to M-G-M. I was sitting in the waiting room when Mr. Skeleton, big cigar in his mouth, walked by. He looked over at me and winked, flicking his cigar. I'd never before been greeted by anybody in show business as important as Mr. Skelton. I just flipped.
"That's when getting the part became important. Each week after that we had to go back to casting. They were slowly weeding out the boys for the job. Finally, it narrowed down to two of us. Then it was a question of size and, because I was bigger, I got the part. When Uncle Sam Told me I had it, I lost my head." Today, Tim still proudly wears the wristwatch given to him by Red Skeleton in 1952, in recognition of his youthful ability.
"The Clown" was Tim's first steppingstone to success. After completing the picture, he was also cast in "Her Twelve Men," starring Greer Garson and "Executive Suite," with William Holden. Even the studio officials at M-G-M had been impressed with his initial ability. But Tim says modestly, "Ah, I was just there so I got the parts."
He followed these pictures in quick succession with a few TV appearances, topping his short career with a role in Universal-International's "The Private War of Major Benson." Shortly after Walt Disney signed Tim for "Spin and Marty," followed by the leading role of Frank Hardy in "The Hardy Boys."
Today, Tim lives with his mother in a smart West Hollywood apartment overlooking the famous "Sunset Strip." Tim has an older married sister, Errin, and a brother, John Jr., a senior at U.C.L.A., who lives with his father in Westwood, since the Considine's are divorced. Tim and his father are great chums. In fact, he and his brother and Mr. Considine go to U.C.L.A. football games together. And Tim is very proud when he, in turn, can take them to his own Notre Dame High School games in San Fernando Valley. At home Tim doesn't need to be told twice that the dishes need wiping. He's one jump ahead of his mother and the Considine maid, Beatrice, in this case. After all, dinner dishes add to the allowance - and the allowance buys "juice" for the sportscar.
After dinner, Tim Daily devotes fifteen minutes to romping with his cocker spaniel, Inky. "Dogs need love and attention, just like people," he says sagely. Then he's off to the room to hit the books for the next day's classes at Notre Dame High.
"On weekends, Tim and his mother, who share many interests, go to the movies together. And after the latest sportscar race, Tim proudly shows Mrs. Considine the 35-mm. color slides of his car in action, projected on his bedroom wall.
Keeping his room neat and tidy falls under the heading of household chores for Tim. But it's only after Beatrice gives it her special attention that Mrs. Considine feels it's real fit for a formal inspection. That's understandable, because Tim's room is filled with tennis rackets, swim fins and snorkel tube, baseball bat and mitt, helter-skelter tennis balls, a record player (on which Tim's current favorite is "No Time for Lovin'," co-authored by his brother, who writes musical scores for U.C.L.A. productions), camera equipment (principally to take pictures of sports cars), a 35-mm. slide projector, a picture of his current best girl - in short all the paraphernalia that goes hand-in-baseball-glove with the picture of a typical American boy.
Tim's love of automobiles and sports would last long after this article. He would become a historian on both subjects. He would author such books as The Photographic Dictionary of Soccer (1979), The Language of Sport (1982), and American Grand Prix Racing: A Century of Drivers and Cars (1997). During his adult life he would also work in photography, most famously photographing the album cover for Joni Mitchell's 1971 album, Blue. In 1965, he married actress Charlotte Stewart, who is best known for playing the schoolteacher Charlotte Stewart on Little House on the Prairie and her role in the David Lynch film Eraserhead (1977). The two met when she appeared in the My Three Sons season one episode, Deadline (1961). The two divorced in 1969. He married Willett Hunt in 1971, and they would stay married until his death and have a son, Christopher. He passed away at the age of 81 on March 3, 2022, at his home in Mar Vista, California.
Here is an interview Leonard Maltin did with Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk for the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set of The Hardy Boys.
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