Dennis Rush, Child Actor in ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ and ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ Dies at 74
He played Lon Chaney Jr. in the James Cagney classic and Howie, one of Opie’s friends, on the beloved CBS sitcom.
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes
May 10, 2026
Dennis Rush, who played Lon Chaney Jr. as a youngster opposite James Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces and one of Opie’s pals alongside Ron Howard on The Andy Griffith Show, has died. He was 74.
Rush, who was diagnosed with leukemia last month, lived in the San Diego area and died Saturday on the way to the hospital, actor-musician Keith Thibodeaux told The Hollywood Reporter. (Thibodeaux played Johnny Paul Jason, another of Opie’s friends, on The Andy Griffith Show, though he’s best known as Little Ricky from I Love Lucy.)
Rush also showed up from 1960-62 on seven episodes of Wagon Train — John Ford directed him in one — and from 1962-63 on three installments of Laramie. Both were Westerns from Revue Studios and NBC.
The freckle-faced Rush made his onscreen acting debut as Creighton Chaney, age 4, in Universal-International’s Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), starring Cagney as silent film star Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera).
As Creighton grows up, Rush is succeeded by Rickie Sorensen, Robert Lyden and finally Roger Smith, who at the end will embark on his own career as an actor (and a starring turn in The Wolf Man!) using the stage name Lon Chaney Jr.
The youngster appeared as Howie Pruitt on CBS’ The Andy Griffith Show over three seasons from 1963-65. “I got to be in eight episodes over about a 2 1/2-year period,” he said in 2022. “It was just the best of the best.”
On the 1964 episode “Barney’s Physical,” Rush ad-libbed a line during rehearsal about Don Knotts’ character “hanging himself in the closet” — he had blanked on what was in the script — and it made it onto the show.
Dennis Eugene Rush was born in Philadelphia on June 10, 1951. When he was 1, his father, Jack, brought the family to Los Angeles and got a job as a film archivist at Universal.
“If you were good, you got to go to the studio and have lunch with dad, it was kind of a big deal,” he recalled last year at the Mayberry-I Love Lucy Festival in Granville, Tennessee.
While they were sitting at the lunch counter, “a man taps my dad on the shoulder and says, ‘I’m looking for a little boy to play my son, I’m making a movie called Man of a Thousand Faces’ … That gentleman was James Cagney.’”
When his father explained that Dennis wasn’t an actor and had to go to school, Cagney replied, “Trust me.” Rush’s screen test involved riding a tricycle around a Christmas tree, and he would spend six months on the movie.
Dorothy Malone portrayed his mom and Jim Backus his uncle, and Rush managed to get emotional in a scene in which Creighton is told by his dad that he’s going to be placed in an orphanage.
Cagney said, “‘You know, this has all been make-believe,” Rush remembered in a 1989 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “But you know how much fun Christmas can be and being with your folks and all that? Well, this little boy is never going to see his mom or his dad again. No more Christmases. No more good food.’
“He kept that up for a walk around the soundstage and had me in tears. We went right in and did the scene in five minutes. Whenever I had to cry from then on, I remembered that.”
He said he and Cagney exchanged Christmas cards every year before the Oscar winner died in March 1986.
Rush also worked on the films No Name on the Bullet (1959) and Follow Me, Boys! (1966) and on episodes of The Millionaire, Checkmate, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, The Lucy Show, Gunsmoke, My Favorite Martian, My Living Doll and The Magical World of Disney.
“Every month or so you would do a number of things and then six months would go by and you wouldn’t do anything,” he said. “Then you’d get a call and go on an interview and you might be with 20 kids or you might be with 200 kids [vying for the same job].”
After he outgrew his child roles, Rush joined the U.S. Marines, and when he finished his stint, he learned that his parents had spent all the money he earned as an actor (he said he made as much as $500 a week).
He graduated from Notre Dame High School and then San Diego State in 1977, had a career in the hotel and restaurant business and was a frequent and popular guest at the Mayberry Lucy fest (he was there last month) and at the Mayberry Days celebration held each year in Mount Airy, North Carolina.
Says a post on the Mayberry Days website: “Dennis was an absolute joy to be around and one of the sweetest men you could ever meet. It was always a pleasure to welcome him to Mayberry Days, where he shared smiles, stories, hugs and kindness with fans from all over the world.”
Survivors include his siblings, Sally, Monica, Patrick and Megan. Another brother, Jack, died in February.
RUSH, Dennis (Dennis Eugene Rush)
Born: 6/10/1951, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A
Died: 5/10/2026, San Diego, California, U.S.A.
Dennis Rish’s westerns – actor:
No Name on the Bullett – 1959 (Billy Chaffee)
The Deputy (TV) - 1959 (Timmy Jackson)
Wagon Train (TV) – 1960-1962 (Davy Adams, David Ivers)
Frontier Circus (TV) - 1962 (boy)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1962 (kid)
Laramie (TV) – 1962-1963 (boy, Teddy)
