As Ferris Bueller’s Day Off turns 40, Canadian actor Lyman Ward is still working on the small and silver screens. Born June 21, 1941, Ward played Tad Schotz on the first episode of Laverne & Shirley, a decade before he became a Bueller, in 1976. ALL

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How different things would have been in both Hollywoods, if, when Brenda and Brandon came home, it had been Lyman Ward waiting for them.

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For a very short while, it was.

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The native of Saint John, New Brunswick, landed the role of Jim Walsh, acting alongside fellow Canadian Jason Priestley and the gang in an early cut of the pilot episode of 90210. But for reasons lost to the sands of time, and Malibu, the showrunners re-cast James Eckhouse in the paternal role and re-shot.

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A setback to be sure, but far from a fatal career blow. Just a few years earlier, he had starred as an advertising executive and father to fast-talking teen Ferris Bueller on one particular day off.

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As Ferris Bueller’s Day Off turns 40, Ward is still working on the small and silver screens. Born June 21, 1941 — the same date as SNL alum Joe Flaherty — Ward played Tad Schotz on the first episode of Laverne & Shirley, a decade before he became a Bueller, in 1976. And before the ‘80s were out, he would play another advertising executive in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, for the same director who blessed us with the Bueller family, John Hughes.

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Speaking of being typecast, Ward and the actor who played Mrs. Bueller, Cindy Pickett, got married for real, had two children together, but the off-screen romance wasn’t to last. Surely, though, it’s a coincidence they split the same year they played the parents of another teen in Sleepwalkers (1992). And don’t call me Shirley.

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Ward also appeared in Independence Day, Will Smith’s epic sci-fi romp from 1996, and played a spoof of his character from Ferris Bueller in the less memorable Not Another Teen Movie in 2001.

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A New Brunswicker through and through, Ward released his first novel, Fortune’s Tide in 2016, which spanned hundreds of years. He told Global News at the time he saw it as a love letter to his hometown, filled with colourful characters he met there as a child.

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“I hope people take away from it about how important this city is and how relevant it is in terms of the world in itself,” he said. “It taught me about where I came from.

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“It was great for me to realize I come from one of the richest historical places in North America.”

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