Jane Wyatt

A lovely leading lady with an attractively broad, open face and softly curled brunette hair, Jane Wyatt carved a very respectable niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1940s as a second-string Myrna Loy, a "perfect wife" to a number of prominent male stars. Her relaxed and serene charm made her a natural for TV, and she won the Emmy Award three years in a row for her most famous part, happy homemaker Margaret Anderson on the landmark family sitcom, "Father Knows Best" (CBS, 1954-55; NBC, 1955-58; CBS, 1958-60). If, in retrospect, the show's patriarchal attitudinizing is most compelling as a cultural indicator of 50s nuclear family ideals, Wyatt nonetheless also presented a good-humored woman of considerable warmth and intelligence, an image that served her well over the remainder of her 60-year career.Born into a family with US roots for several hundred years, Wyatt began acting as an apprentice at the Berkshire Playhouse in Massachusetts before debuting on Broadway as Rose Hobart's understudy in "Tradewinds" (1930). In 1932, she enjoyed a breakthrough as an ingenue in "Give Me Yesterday". In rapid succession, Wyatt performed in plays including "The Tadpole" (1932) and "Evensong" (1933),...

A lovely leading lady with an attractively broad, open face and softly curled brunette hair, Jane Wyatt carved a very respectable niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1940s as a second-string Myrna Loy, a "perfect wife" to a number of prominent male stars. Her relaxed and serene charm made her a natural for TV, and she won the Emmy Award three years in a row for her most famous part, happy homemaker Margaret Anderson on the landmark family sitcom, "Father Knows Best" (CBS, 1954-55; NBC, 1955-58; CBS, 1958-60). If, in retrospect, the show's patriarchal attitudinizing is most compelling as a cultural indicator of 50s nuclear family ideals, Wyatt nonetheless also presented a good-humored woman of considerable warmth and intelligence, an image that served her well over the remainder of her 60-year career.

Born into a family with US roots for several hundred years, Wyatt began acting as an apprentice at the Berkshire Playhouse in Massachusetts before debuting on Broadway as Rose Hobart's understudy in "Tradewinds" (1930). In 1932, she enjoyed a breakthrough as an ingenue in "Give Me Yesterday". In rapid succession, Wyatt performed in plays including "The Tadpole" (1932) and "Evensong" (1933), enjoying her biggest part and widest exposure when she took over Margaret Sullavan's role in the hit "Dinner at Eight" (1933). The following year she was signed to a short-term contract by Universal, and made her film debut in a fine performance as the heroine's supportive sister in James Whale's superb "One More River" (1934). Wyatt also played her first romantic lead that same year as the grown-up Estella in a rather ho-hum adaptation of Dickens' "Great Expectations". Her best-known work from this time, though, was her appealingly played performance opposite Ronald Colman in Frank Capra's classic journey to Shangri-La, "Lost Horizon" (1937).

Wyatt had it in her brief contract with Universal that she could return to the theater for six months each year. Finding several of her film assignments routine, Wyatt was off-screen between 1937 and 1940, busying herself with stage work. The 40s marked her most prolific period on the big screen, as she free-lanced among various studios, performing in routine but agreeable genre fare like "The Navy Comes Through" (1942) and "The Kansan" (1943). Wyatt did play the occasional second lead in expensive pictures ("Gentleman's Agreement" 1947, "My Blue Heaven" 1950) but became more commonly typed as the sensible wife or girlfriend opposite Cary Grant ("None But the Lonely Heart" 1944), Randolph Scott ("Canadian Pacific" 1948) and Gary Cooper ("Task Force" 1949). Two of her best performances and films from this period were the powerful docudrama "Boomerang" (1947), where she played Dana Andrews' spouse, and the moody film noir "Pitfall" (1948), where husband Dick Powell was lured by femme fatale Lizabeth Scott.

Wyatt made her TV debut on "Robert Montgomery Presents" in 1952 and over the next decade kept very busy guest starring on many anthology dramas, including "Light's Out", "Studio One" and "Fireside Theater". "Father Knows Best" firmly etched Wyatt in the national TV consciousness; her later film appearances were very occasional ("Interlude" 1957, "Never Too Late" 1965, among them). In the 60s, she switched to TV-movies, which over the years have included "See How They Run" (NBC, 1964), "Tom Sawyer" (CBS, 1973, well-cast as Aunt Polly), "Katharine" (ABC, 1975), "The Nativity" (ABC, 1978, as the Blessed Virgin's mother Anna), and "Amityville: The Evil Escapes" (NBC, 1989). She also acted in two "Father Knows Best" TV reunions, played a recurring role as Dr. Auschlander's (Norman Lloyd) wife on NBC's "St. Elsewhere" in the mid-80s and did many guest stints on a wide variety of TV series. One such appearance (in 1967) was that of Amanda, human mother of the Vulcan Mr. Spock on the "Journey to Babel" episode of the cult favorite "Star Trek". Wyatt's performance, at once graceful, poignant and quite forceful, became one of her best remembered, such that she reprised it for the feature "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986).

CAST: (feature film)