David Nelson contributed liner notes and background vocals to collections of recordings by his brother, who performed as both Ricky Nelson and Rick Nelson as he progressed from teen idol to mature country-rocker, respectively. A Brother Remembers, a documentary first aired in the late '80s, represented David Nelson's personal film portrait of the brother he had basically grown up with in public. His father, bandleader Ozzie Nelson, had come up with the idea of a comedy series based on the funnier aspects of his own family's life. The idea originated on radio in the '40s and evolved into one of the most popular programs in the history of television. In the earliest days of his father's series concept, a pair of actors played the roles of the brothers. In 1949, after the radio program entitled The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet had been on CBS for five years, Ricky Nelson and David Nelson were finally allowed to portray themselves.

The Nelson family reign of television, including both black-and-white and color versions and eventually co-starring the Nelson brothers' actual wives, is an obvious place to research various urban myths regarding the later career of David Nelson. Much of this confusion is obviously based on the name itself being incredibly common. "He played with the Grateful Dead," for example, is a classic combination of myth and wish fulfillment, the television actor of the square '50s freaking out and turning into a hippie lead guitar player in the far-out '60s. Unfortunately, this is a different David Nelson.

The David Nelson of Ozzie & Harriet fame actually went into commercial advertising production, occasionally contributing to various material based on the career of his extended family, which put him in the background instead of in front of the camera. While Ozzie & Harriet was undoubtedly his most famous role, Nelson continued to act in films sporadically, including John Waters' Crybaby in the early '90s. David Nelson died of complications from colon cancer in Century City, CA, on January 11, 2011; he was 74 years of age, and the last remaining member of the famous television family that had entered the living rooms of so many American households during a far more innocent era. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi