Jerry Mathers, the actor famous for playing Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver," will fly in tomorrow to attend the Peak City Film Festival, running Friday through Sunday in downtown Apex.

The festival will honor Mathers with a lifetime achievement award at Friday night's opening ceremonies.

Mathers is a friend of John Demers, the festival's executive producer.

They worked together on the 2008 thriller "Will to Power" -- Mathers as an actor and Demers as executive producer.

Mathers isn't the boy in the baseball cap anymore.

But the 61-year-old father of three doesn't mind being recognized forever for a role he stopped playing when he was 14.

Mathers chatted about life after childhood fame with staff writer Vickie Jean DeHamer via telephone on Friday from Los Angeles.

He weighed in on working with Alfred Hitchcock, censorship in the 1950s and leaving the world of acting to become a banker. Mathers was open about sharing details that went beyond what we saw on television.

Here's an excerpt from their conversation:

Q: What are you up to these days? Right now I work with the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. We give free medications to people who are struggling. And I just finished a Time Life infomercial called, "Sixties Music Explosion."

Q: You like music from the 1960s? Yes, that's when I graduated from high school.

Q: Who was your favorite band? Cream.

Q: How often do you still get recognized? I'm recognized all the time. I'd imagine it's from "Leave it to Beaver." It's the longest show in scripted television history. It's never been off the air. I basically grew up in everyone's living room -- they feel like they know me. It's a warm relationship I have with my fans.

Q: What was it like getting acting jobs after such an iconic role? It stopped filming in 1962, after 234 episodes. Actually, the studio came to my parents and they said they had another movie to develop [with me]. I worked with Alfred Hitchcock; "Leave it to Beaver" was not the first job I ever had. I'd been working since I was 2 years old. My dad asked me if that's what I wanted to do. I said no. It was my freshman year in high school.

Q: So you left the business. I used the money from "Leave it to Beaver" to put myself through school. I spent several years as a banker and I realized commercial real estate people were making more [money] than I did. So I went into commercial real estate.

Q: What have you been most proud of in your career? Obviously, "Leave it to Beaver" was the role that made me famous. [I've also done] something that most actors have never done: worked with [Alfred] Hitchcock, Bob Hope, Alan Ladd. I worked with and knew these people.

Hitch was a great guy. I knew him from working on "The Trouble with Harry."

Q: Who was your best friend on the set of "Leave it to Beaver"? A guy named Richard Correll. He played Richard Rickover.

Now he's the producer on "Hanna Montana." We were all friends.

Tony Dow [who played big brother, Wally Cleaver] and I used to go out and throw baseballs around.

Q: You know, I had a big crush on Wally. Tony Dow [trained to be] an Olympic athlete; that's why he was picked for the role.

He held two world records to his name.

He really was the athlete as people saw him as on "Leave it to Beaver."

He's a sculptor now and just opened with a piece at the Louvre.

Q: What sorts of things would they censor back in the 1950s that would surprise a modern audience? [It happened] on the very first show. In comic books, you used to be able to buy an alligator from Florida.

The boys get an alligator and they hide it in the toilet tank in their bathrooms.

Bathrooms, not even toilets, were allowed to be shown on TV. You weren't allowed to have a bathroom.

You're talking about a time when married couples had to sleep in separate beds. It was a very different time.

Q: What do you think of the Peak City Film Festival? I love film festivals.

And I'm very much interested in family-friendly films.

There are very few programs on television today that you could sit down and the entire family can watch.

I'm not for censorship in any way, but I think shows like that are important.