Father Knows Best' Star Jane Wyatt Dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "To the millions watching the 1950s TV show "Father Knows Best," actress Jane Wyatt was the wholesome stay-at-home mom who, the series' title notwithstanding, could be counted on every week to solve crises on the homefront.

"Each script always solved a little problem that was universal," she told The Associated Press in 1989. "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."

Wyatt, who won three Emmy Awards, died Friday in her sleep of natural causes at her Bel-Air home, according to publicist Meg McDonald. She was 96.

"Ninety-six and a few months old is a wonderful life," her son, Christopher Ward, said Sunday.

Wyatt had a successful film career in the 1930s and '40s, notably as Ronald Colman's lover in 1937's "Lost Horizon." She worked throughout the 1970s and 80s, appearing on TV shows including "St. Elsewhere."

But it was her years as Robert Young's TV wife, Margaret Anderson, on "Father Knows Best" that brought the actress her lasting fame. She gamely delivered lines like "Eat your dinner, dear," or "How did you do in school today?"

She appeared in 207 half-hour episodes from 1954 to 1960 and won three Emmys as best actress in a dramatic series in the years 1958 to 1960. The show began as a radio sitcom in 1949; it moved to television in 1954."

My first remembered crush. At our house, Father Knows Best was staple fare, and the elegant, thin lady with the vivacious smile broke my young heart week after week. When she returned to prime time as Spock's mother, the vivacity had turned to impishness and I fell in love all over again.

And dash it all but these shows WERE the American Family of the 50's and early 60's. Women wore dresses, men sat down to the dinner table with a tie, everyone was slender and the manners at home were impeccable. The standards were there for everyone to see and emulate, and look what's happened since mom's grew asses the size of Texas and dad's began sidling up to a meal in teeshirts and jeans. Just because society was more polite doesn't mean it did not exist. Sure things could get dicey in real life, but 'Father' was something to AIM for. Today so much of the nuclear family is something to sink to.