‘Father Knows Best’ Mom Dead at 96
Jane Wyatt, an actress known best for her portrayal of mother Margaret Anderson on the popular ’50s TV show “Father Knows Best,” died on Friday. She was 96.
Her publicist, Meg McDonald, announced Wyatt’s passing on Sunday, saying that she died of natural causes in her sleep.
Reuters reports that Wyatt won a number of Emmy awards for her role as Anderson, but also acted in numerous films, including “Great Expectations” (1934), “Lost Horizon,” (1937), and “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947). She had another memorable TV role as Spock’s mother on “Star Trek,” a part she later reprised for the 1986 film, “The Voyage Home.”
Wyatt also garnered unwanted attention in the early 1950s, when she was blacklisted by Sen. Joe McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee. She later became one of the most outspoken critics of the blacklist.
She was left a widow in 2000 when her husband of 63 years, investor and inventor Edgar Bethune Ward, died. Wyatt is survived by two sons, three grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
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