Born in Campgaw, New Jersey, Jane Waddington Wyatt came from a New York family of social distinction (her father was a Wall Street investment banker and her mother was a drama critic). Jane was raised from the age of three months in New York City and attended the fashionable Chapin School and later Barnard College. After two years of college, she ...
Our shows were written to be entertaining, but the writers had something to say. Every script always solved a little problem that was universal. It appealed to everyone. I think the world is hankering for a family. People may want to be free, but they still want a nuclear family.
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I was never a member of the Communist Party, but they brought up all sorts of charges that I had been to the Lab Theater, which was considered subversive. All we did there were the classics, "Volpone", "The Cherry Orchard". I still don't know how they managed to find a Marxist subtext in Feydeau.
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I never vacuumed at home wearing my pearls. In fact, I never vacuumed at all. I was always working at the studio. I would have gone crazy staying at home like Margaret Anderson, and my family knew that.
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[on why she initially turned down the role on Father Knows Best (1954)] I'd been doing a lot of live TV drama in which I was the star. I didn't want to be just a mother.
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Fact
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Along with actor Ricardo Montalban, Ms. Wyatt was among a few established Hollywood actors who had a role on the original 1960's Star Trek TV series episodes (1967: 'Journey to Babel') in addition to appearing 20 yrs later in 1986 Star Trek film ("Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home").
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Attended the Chapin School and Barnard College.
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She was a staunch liberal Democrat.
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Best remembered by the public for her starring role as Margaret Anderson on Father Knows Best (1954).
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Following her death, she was interred with her husband Edgar Bethune Ward at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.
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Turned down the role of Old Rose in Titanic (1997) with the reasoning that she wanted to remain in retirement. The role went to Gloria Stuart.
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Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6350 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
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Today, those who fondly recall her in the archetypal 1950s family sitcom Father Knows Best (1954) may be surprised to learn that when the series debuted in 1954, the series did so poorly in the ratings that CBS canceled it in March 1955. A flood of protests came from viewers insisting that the series be reinstated. The series was moved to an earlier time, and it gradually became a hit.
Was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Actors Branch).
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Was an invaluable member of the March of Dimes charitable organization since 1943. Donations were directed toward the March of Dimes at the time of her death.
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Jean Vander Pyl played the wifely role opposite Robert Young on the "Father Knows Best" radio program in 1949. However, both Young and Eugene B. Rodney, Young's partner in ownership and production of the series, wanted Wyatt to play the role when it went to television.
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Won three consecutive Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Margaret Anderson on Father Knows Best (1954).
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She was directly descended, on her mother's side, from the van Renssalaer family, one of the earliest Dutch families to settle in the Colonies, as early as 1638, and which at one time owned most of what is now New York City. Renssalaer County in upstate New York is named after them. From the same line, she was also a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Philip Livingston, signer of the Declaration of Independance.
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Has two sons: Christopher and Michael Ward, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
She was a devout Catholic, whose late husband died on the day before what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary.
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Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1986.
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Joined Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and other Hollywood stars on a flight to Washington in 1947 to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.
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