"Father Knows Best" on DVD: Stars Jane Wyatt & Elinor Donahue Interviews Online!

The classic 50s TV family sitcom "Father Knows Best" has been released on DVD!

The Archive has interviewed two of the show's stars, Elinor Donahue and Jane Wyatt, at length for our oral history collection.

Click here to access Elinor Donahue's entire 7-part interview.

Interview Description:
Elinor Donahue was interviewed in 2006. She outlines her early film career in such films as "Mister Big" and "The Unfinished Dance". She describes appearing in early experimental TV for Klaus Landsberg and speaks fondly of her appearance on "The Ray Bolger Show". She speaks in detail about her role as teenager "Betty 'Princess' Anderson" on the classic '50s sitcom "Father Knows Best". She recalls working with producer Eugene Rodney and her fictional father Robert Young, "mother" Jane Wyatt and "siblings" Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin. Throughout the interview, Donahue also discusses her many guest appearances on series over the years including "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Odd Couple","Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman", "Get A Life", "The Loretta Young Show", "Star Trek", and "Ellen".

Click here to access Jane Wyatt's entire 4-part interview.

Interview description:
Jane Wyatt (1910-2006) was interviewed for two hours in Los Angeles, CA in 1999. Ms. Wyatt described her lengthy career in film, stage, and television. She talked about her feature film debut in 1934 in James Whale’s One More River and her subsequent film roles in such classics as Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon and Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement. She discussed the McCarthy era in which she found herself on an industry blacklist, unable to work in film. She described her television debut on Robert Montgomery Presents in the title role of “Kitty Foyle” (1950) and her varied roles in “live” television. She described in detail her most memorable and enduring work for television on Father Knows Best (1954-63), in which she played the role of wife and mother Margaret Anderson, a part that won her three consecutive Emmy Awards. She talked about her appearance as Mr. Spock’s human mother on the series Star Trek (a role she repeated in the feature film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Ms. Wyatt also described her memorable recurring role as Katherine Auschlander on the medical drama St. Elsewhere.

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