For five seasons, Larry Mathews was Ritchie Petrie, the little boy who ran into the living room of Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Now 71, Larry Mathews has opened up about the day that television family broke up for good. He spoke on the Tripping Over The Ottoman podcast with host David Van Deusen, the show’s historian and archivist, and both People and Parade reported his remarks on October 17, 2026.
What he described happened at the wrap party in 1966, when he was 10 years old. The harder part came months later, in an ordinary classroom far from the CBS soundstage. To understand why it hit him so hard, you have to start with a mailman.
How Did A Burbank Mailman Help Land Him The Role Of Ritchie?
He was born Larry Mazzeo on August 15, 1955, in Burbank, California. According to Remind magazine and his biography for the Hollywood Christmas Parade, he was the sixth of seven children in a busy household.
The family’s mailman noticed. According to MeTV, the mailman’s own son had won a talent contest that led to an acting coach named Lois Auer. He urged the Mazzeos to sign Larry up with her. Remind tells the same story, saying the mailman encouraged his mother to enroll him in acting lessons.
The timing was remarkable. “Not too long after I signed with them, Carl Reiner phoned, saying he needed a little boy for the Dick Van Dyke pilot. I was the only one sent,” Mathews recalled in the book The Dick Van Dyke Show: Anatomy of a Classic, as quoted by MeTV. Reiner wanted a newcomer. Morey Amsterdam later remembered him saying, “I want a kid who hasn’t done anything and hasn’t been in anything.” Mathews was 5 years old when he won the part.
He had no idea yet what kind of company he was about to keep.
What Was It Like Growing Up Beside Rob And Laura Petrie?
Mathews has always credited Dick Van Dyke for making a little boy feel at home. “It was easy to play the part of his son because he made it feel like you were a son,” he told Remind in 2025.
Mary Tyler Moore, his TV mom, meant just as much. After she died in January 2017, he told The Signal, “She was like another mother to me and a big sister rolled into one.”
His closest friend on the set was Rose Marie, who played Sally Rogers. The two shared a birthday, August 15, and Remind reported in 2024 that they exchanged birthday cards every year. “Rose and I were very, very close. Our families were very, very close,” he said. Shortly before her death on December 28, 2017, she hugged him at a screening of her documentary and told him, “I just love you so much, and I’ve always loved you.”
The set also gave him one of the darkest memories of his childhood. On November 22, 1963, the cast was rehearsing an episode about Ritchie’s eighth birthday party when news came that President Kennedy had been shot. Mathews told Remind that Reiner stopped everything and turned on a radio so the cast could hear Walter Cronkite, a moment we covered in his memory of the day JFK died.
The series ran 158 episodes and won 15 Emmy Awards. CBS never canceled it. The final episode, “The Last Chapter,” aired on June 1, 1966. Van Dyke explained the decision to Life magazine that week: “We wanted to quit while we were still proud of it.” The grown-ups had other work waiting. Their 10-year-old co-star did not.
Where Did Life Take Ritchie After 1966?
Episode: A Word a Day, February 2, 1962
Shown from left: Mary Tyler Moore (as Laura Petrie), Dick Van Dyke (as Rob Petrie), Larry Mathews (as Richard Rosebud ‘Ritchie’ Petrie )
Mathews stepped away from acting and went back to a regular childhood. He attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, then majored in theater arts at UCLA, according to both People and his Hollywood Christmas Parade biography. Wikipedia lists his UCLA graduation year as 1976.
He found his way back to Hollywood through the side door. Remind reported that he worked behind the camera on Soap and Benson, which led to a long career in post-production sales. His Hollywood Christmas Parade biography says he worked as an assistant producer, editor, assistant director, and post-production supervisor for more than 37 years. That same biography names him Vice President of Sales at CCI Digital, a post-production house in the Los Angeles area. People says he did occasional acting and voiceover work before retiring. He has been married to his wife, Jennifer, since 1987.
The bond with his TV father has lasted. In 2024, Remind reported, Mathews reunited with Van Dyke for the 98 Years of Magic television celebration. There he caught up with Barry Van Dyke, one of Dick Van Dyke’s four children, who remembered the two boys sneaking Kent cigarettes from the set. In September 2025, he was booked to screen never-before-seen color home movies from the set for fans at the New Rochelle Public Library in New York, according to Talk of the Sound.
Through all of it, one night from 1966 has stayed with him.
Why Did The Wrap Party Leave A 10-Year-Old In Tears?
On the podcast, Mathews explained that the cast had become a second family. He said he understood exactly what was ending. “I was really emotional about it,” he said, as reported by People. “And, you know, in the wrap party, I cried because I remembered that we weren’t going to be with each other.”
He added that he was “kind of devastated that we weren’t going to wake up the next week and come in and do a show.” The adults took it in stride, he said, since Dick “had stuff” lined up and Mary had other work too. For him, it was the first time he had ever left a family and known he would not see them every week again.
Then came school. On set, he had been tutored and had skipped a grade. Walking back into a public school classroom was a shock. “No, it was horrible, actually,” he told Van Deusen, according to both People and Parade. Other kids looked at him and thought, “Oh, who’s this kid? He thinks he’s special.”
It took years to turn around. In high school, he said, “The whole switch flipped, and it was the most wonderful experience.” That is where he fell in love with theater all over again, the path that led him to UCLA.
Today, Mathews and Dick Van Dyke are the last two surviving stars of the original main cast. Van Dyke, born December 13, 1925, celebrated his 100th birthday last December. When Remind asked Mathews in 2025 what he wanted to say to his TV dad as that milestone approached, his answer was simple. He planned to tell him he is “an amazing man.”