Eddie Hodges

Child actor Eddie Hodges achieved prominence in 1957 when he was cast as lisping Iowa youngster Winthrop Paroo in the Broadway hit The Music Man. Two years later, he was co-starring in the heady company of Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, and Edward G. Robinson in Frank Capra's A Hole in the Head (1959), in which he and Sinatra introduced the popular Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn tune "High Hopes." 1960 was a particularly fruitful year for the 13-year-old Hodges; in addition to starring in MGM's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he headlined his own hour-long TV special. Like most juvenile performers, his popularity faded as he grew older, and by 1968 he was out of show business. But before disappearing from public view, Eddie Hodges delivered a hilarious performance as a lovestruck teenager in a 1964 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide