Elinor Donahue Knows Best
April 14, 2008

At the age of 17, Elinor Donahue created the role of Betty “Princess” Anderson, the oldest of the Anderson family’s three children in the classic family TV sitcom Father Knows Best, the first season of which was issued on DVD last week by Shout! Factory. A veteran child star when she was cast in the show (she had been appearing in motion pictures in the decade prior to the show’s launch), Ms. Donahue still retains the fondest of memories for the show that firmly established her career.

I loved doing that show, I just loved it,” Ms. Donahue told me in a phone interview two weeks ago. “And I loved the people connected to it. I spent more time with them than I did with my own mother.”

In fact, her only sad memories of Father Knows Best, which ran for six complete seasons, revolve around the manner in which it was ultimately cancelled.

I didn’t hit the wall—it sort of just ended. There was actually a writers’ strike in 1959 and unbeknownst to us, [Father Knows Best stars] Robert Young and Jane Wyatt didn’t want to go on any more. So, when we had to break for the writers strike, we didn’t know we weren’t coming back after. We just got phone calls telling us that was all over. I had so enjoyed it and I felt like I was shoved out of the nest to soon. 

Not that Elinor Donahue had to worry about trying to find more work.

A journeywoman in the world of network television, Ms. Donahue has become one of TV’s most recognizable faces. Over the past half-century, she’s made guest appearances on dozens of popular shows, including Star Trek, The Love Boat, Happy Days, Ellen, The Golden Girls, Mork & Mindy, Dr. Kildare, Police Woman, The Flying Nun, Fantasy Island, 77 Sunset Strip, S.W.A.T., The Golden Girls, The Virginian and many others. Additionally, she’s had featured or recurring roles on such series as Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, Get a Life with Chris Elliott, The Andy Griffith Show and The Odd Couple, where she portrayed Miriam Welby, girlfriend of Tony Randall’s irrepressible Felix Unger.

“Tony was very excitable, very urbane. Things would tick him off—he was very much like his Felix character,” Ms. Donahue remembered of her experiences working the legendarily persnickety Randall. “The very first episode I appeared in, I blew a line and he was very angry. I got so upset—I was practically in tears—and I thought I was going to be fired,” ‘The next day, he sent me a beautiful small, delicate bouquet of roses to both apologize and welcome me. He was like a lamb with me after that.”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on April 14, 2008 | Comments (0)