Joey D. Vieira, who portrayed the farm boy Sylvester “Porky” Brockway on the first four seasons of the long-running CBS series Lassie, has died. He was 80.
Vieira died Monday — the day before his birthday — in hospice care, his Lassie co-star Jon Provost announced on Facebook.
Viera also appeared in some notable films, among them Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Red Heat (1988) and The Patriot (2000).
Billed as Donald Keeler — his aunt was Ruby Keeler, who starred in Warner Bros. musicals — Vieira appeared on 91 episodes of Lassie from 1954-57. At the start, the show revolved around the Miller family — Tommy Rettig as Jeff, Jan Clayton as his mom, Ellen, and George Cleveland as Gramps — living on a farm with their collie.
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Quite often, Porky, who also had a dog, a basset hound named Pokey, was seen wearing a beanie and huffing and puffing, trying to keep up with his best friend Jeff and Lassie. (Provost, who played Timmy Martin, joined the series in 1957.)
After his run on Lassie — the series would go on for another 15 seasons — Vieira showed up on episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Shirley Temple’s Storybook and My Three Sons, playing characters not unlike Porky.
“I can’t tell you how tired I got saying those same lines over and over again,” he said in a 1982 interview. “Finally I decided that I’d had it with the tennis shoes and the beanie,” and he lived in England for a year.
After returning to California, Vieira dropped more than 50 pounds — only to put the weight back on in 1965 for a part on Hank, an NBC sitcom that starred Dick Kallman as a “college drop-in.” Created by Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson, the show lasted just one season.
Joseph Douglas Vieira was born in Los Angeles on April 8, 1944. His father was animal trainer William McAllister Weatherwax; his mother, Marjorie, was Ruby’s sister; and his half-brother was Ken Weatherwax, who played Pugsley on the 1964-66 ABC comedy The Addams Family.
In 1953, Vieira made his onscreen debut on an episode of the CBS sitcom Meet Mr. McNutley, starring Ray Milland, and landed a recurring role on the NBC comedy The Pride of the Family, starring Fay Wray and Paul Hartman.
He was 10 when he was hired for Lassie, created by producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax (his dad’s brother).
Vieira’s résumé included the films The Private War of Major Benson (1955), Evel Knievel (1971) and Free Enterprise (1998) and roles on Remington Steele, Married … With Children and Moonlighting.
He also worked as a record producer, composer and director of TV commercials and corporate promotional videos.
Survivors include his daughter, Shanyn. His son, Beau, died of cancer in 2023.
April 10: Because of a mislabeling error by Everett Collection, an incorrect photo was previously used for this obituary. It has been replaced.
