Celebrated actress Jane Wyatt dies at 96
Jane Wyatt, an American actress and most famous for her roles as Ronald Colman's love interest in Frank Capra's ‘Lost Horizon’; as Margaret Anderson, the mother in the 1950s television comedy ‘Father Knows Best’; and as Amanda Grayson, Mr. Spock's mother on ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’ and ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’, died on October 20, 2006 of natural causes in her home in Bel Air, California at the age of 96.
"Ninety-six and a few months old is a wonderful life," her son, Christopher Ward, said Sunday.
Spanning a decade long career, she appeared in other notable films such as, ‘Gentleman's Agreement’, ‘None but the Lonely Heart’, and Boomerang. Late in her career, she played Katherine Auschlander on the 1980s medical drama ‘St. Elsewhere’.
One of her first jobs on Broadway theatre, the highest professional form of theatre in the United States, was as understudy to American actress Rose Hobart in a production of ‘Trade Winds’. Receiving favorable notices on Broadway and renowned for her understated beauty, Wyatt made a transition from stage to screen and was placed under contract at Universal.
On November 9, 1935, Wyatt married investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward (he died in 2000). The couple met in the late 1920s, when both were weekend houseguests of Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Hyde Park. The Wards had two surviving sons. According to Wyatt's obituary in the Washington Post, a third son died in infancy in the early 1940s.
In the 1950s, she co-starred with Robert Young in ‘Father Knows Best’, the classic TV show chronicling the life and times of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. She won the Emmy for best actress in a comedy for three years in a row for her role as Margaret Anderson.
After the serial went off-air, Wyatt appeared in a variety of television soaps, including ‘The Virginian’ and ‘Fantasy Island’.
She also accepted a part in ‘Amityville: The Evil Escapes’, a TV movie that was a chapter in the ‘Amityville Horror’ scare flicks.
Her film career suffered because of her outspoken opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy, the chief figure in the anti-Communist hysteria of that era. As a result, she returned to her roots on the New York stage for a time and appeared in such plays as Lillian Hellman's ‘The Autumn Garden’, opposite Fredric March.
"In real life my grandmother embodied the persona of Margaret Anderson," said Wyatt's grandson Nicholas Ward.
"She was loving and giving and always gave her time to other people."
She is survived by sons Christopher Ward, of Piedmont, California and Michael Ward of Los Angeles; three grandchildren Nicholas, Andrew and Laura; and five great-grandchildren.
