How LEAVE IT TO BEAVER Star Jerry Mathers Helped with Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO

I would have never thought that there would be any connection between Leave It To Beaver and Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film Psycho, but there is, and it’s a cool bit of little movie trivia that you might not have known before!

It turns out that Leave it to Beaver star Jerry Mathers was enlisted to actually help with the creation of the creepy-ass skull of Norman Bates's mother. He helped special effects artist Bob Dawn glue on one hair at a time on the skull.

Mather’s himself shared the story on his blog, saying:

While we were filming Leave it to Beaver, Bob Dawn was hired as the make-up man for the first season.  His specialty was appliances and special effects.  In the episode “The Haircut ”  he created an appliance for me to wear which was made to look like I had “butchered” my own hair.  And, at the end of the show he made another appliance which was a mohawk.  Like his father Jack Dawn, Bob was also one of the top make-up artists in Hollywood, especially for specialty make-up.  

While he was working on our show, Alfred Hitchcock hired him to prepare a skull for the final scenes of Psycho.  He brought it to our set to age it and glue long hair on it to make it look like the corpse of Mrs. Bates.  He had to apply each strand one by one.  I was fascinated and asked him if I could help.  He said “yes” and for the next few days, with his guidance, I attached some hair strands one by one on the skull.  As a young boy, I thought, what could be cooler than this!!!

Mathers also shared this image saying that it was “taken right after we opened the box from the medical supply company that supplied the skull that Bob had ordered for Psycho.”

When the head of Mrs. Bates was finished, Alfred Hitchcock tested the fear factor of the corpse by placing it in Janet Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she screamed when she saw it.