Background
He was the elder son of bandleader/television actor Ozzie Nelson and singer Harriet Hilliard and the older brother of singer Eric "Ricky" Nelson.
He was the elder son of bandleader/television actor Ozzie Nelson and singer Harriet Hilliard and the older brother of singer Eric "Ricky" Nelson.
University of Southern California.
During the run of the series, Nelson directed several episodes. After the series" end, he continued acting, directing and producing. His most memorable "break-out" performance was in the 1959 thriller The Big Circus, wherein Nelson played a disturbed, apparently homicidal "troubled youth", while his last film appearance was in the campier Cry-Baby (1990).
Foreign his contribution to the motion picture industry, Nelson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1501 Vine Street, on May 9, 1996.
He attended Hollywood High School, balancing his studies, playing on the football team and his television work. Nelson died on January 11, 2011, in Century City, California, from complications of colon cancer.
Nelson was cremated and chose not to be interred in the Nelson family plot in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California, instead choosing a niche in Westwood Memorial Park"s outdoor Garden of Serenity columbarium.
He later attended the University of Southern California and was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.
