From 1952 to 1966, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was one of the most culturally relevant and popular shows on TV. It catapulted married couple Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and their real-life sons David and Ricky to stardom, and also served as a launching pad for Ricky Nelson to become the Justin Bieber of his time. In the early ‘90s, Ricky’s twin boys became pop stars in their own right. So what happened to the Nelson family?
Ozzie Nelson was the mastermind behind the family’s success, but before he was a sitcom star and the patriarch of America’s favorite family, he was a musician. He formed The Ozzie Nelson Orchestra in 1930 and had a string of hits, including a number 1 song called “And Then Some.” He would often duet on those records with a singer named Harriet Hilliard, and the two eventually married. They then quickly had two sons, David and Ricky.
Tired of being on the road, the Nelsons longed for stability so they got into radio and became regulars on ABC programs like The Red Skelton Show. When Skelton was drafted into World War II in 1944, they created their own show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. On the radio, their sons were played by actors. By the 1950s, ABC wanted the show to transition to TV, so Ozzie produced a hit movie called Here Come the Nelsons. Ozzie then negotiated an unheard-of contract for a ten-year-deal that would pay the family whether or not the show lasted that long.
The show became one of the most popular and longest-running programs of its day. It stayed on the air so long that Ricky and David grew up and got married during its run. This brought two more cast members onto the set: the boys’ real wives June Blair (married to David) and Kristin Harmon (married to Ricky). Around the same time in the mid-’50s, a new musical genre called rock n’ roll was tearing up the zeitgeist, and Ozzie smelled an opportunity. He used the show’s reach to get his son Ricky a record deal and got him to perform the Fats Domino tune “I’m Walkin’” on the show. It reached #4 on the charts and a second song called “A Teenager’s Romance” made it to number 2.
During the tail end of the show’s run, Ricky became a huge teen idol. He had 30 Top 40 hits from 1957 to 1962, second only to Elvis and Pat Boone. He also starred in movies with huge names like John Wayne and Dean Martin. The middle of the ‘60s saw tastes changing, with four lads from Liverpool forever altering the face and sound of rock. Young people lost interest in the program, considering it to be dated. The last episode of the show aired on April 23, 1966.
A spin-off called Ozzie’s Girls, about renting out the boys’ rooms to college girls, didn’t make it past the first season. After that, Ozzie worked as a director until he died in 1975 from liver cancer. His wife took a step back from the business after her husband died, but recorded voiceovers for when the original show was remastered for the Disney Channel. She passed away in 1994. Older son David continued to work in film and television until he passed away from cancer in 2011.
Ricky continued to act and make music, and he started a country rock group called the Stone Canyon Band in an attempt to shed his teenybopper image. In 1972 he scored his final Top 40 hit with the song “Garden Party.” It was a poignant tune describing how Ricky went to play an oldies show at Madison Square Garden but was booed when he showed up in bell bottoms and with long hair. He made a run at a comeback in 1985 but died tragically in a plane crash on the way to a concert in 1985. His children, however, continued to work in the business. His daughter Tracy was an actress who beat cancer three times.
Perhaps the most successful Nelson family offspring were his twin sons, who formed the rock group Nelson and scored a #1 hit with the song “(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection.” This made the Nelson family the first one to get a number 1 hit in three separate generations. The Nelson band released another album in 1995, but by that time musical tastes had changed. The youngest son, Sam, worked to archive the original series so it could be streamed or put on Blu-ray.