Template:Realworld
| File:AmandaGrayson.JPG | |
| ...as Amanda Grayson (1986) | |
| Actor: | Jane Wyatt |
| Character: | Amanda Grayson |
| Born: | 12 August 1910 |
| Died: | 20 October 2006 |
| Place: | Campgaw, New Jersey |
| File:Amanda, Journey to Babel.jpg | |
| …as Amanda Grayson (1967) | |
Jane Wyatt (12 August 1910 – 20 October 2006; age 96) was the Emmy award-winning American actress who played Amanda Grayson, wife to Vulcan Ambassador Sarek and mother of Spock, in the Star Trek episode "Journey to Babel" and again in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Outside of Star Trek, she is best remembered for her roles in the 1937 film Lost Horizon and the television series Father Knows Best.
Biography
Born in Campgaw, New Jersey, Jane Waddington Wyatt was the daughter of Christopher Billop Wyatt, Jr. – a Wall Street investment banker of English and Irish heritage – and the former Euphemia Van Rensselaer Waddington, a drama critic and descendent of early Dutch colonists. Jane attended the Chapin School in New York City. She later attended, but did not graduate from, Barnard College before becoming a professional actress.
Wyatt searched Broadway for an acting job, ultimately landing a role in a production of A.A. Milne's Give Me Yesterday in 1931. After roles in several other Broadway plays (including Conquest in 1933, starring Dame Judith Anderson), she made the transition to film in 1934, with supporting roles in One More River and Great Expectations. Perhaps her most famous film role is that of the female lead in Frank Capra's classic, Oscar-winning 1937 drama Lost Horizon, which also featured Leonard Mudie. She went on to have roles in such acclaimed films as None But the Lonely Heart (1944), Elia Kazan's Boomerang! and Gentleman's Agreement (both released in 1947, with the latter co-starring Dean Stockwell), Task Force (1949, with Kenneth Tobey), and Fritz Lang's House by the River (1950, co-starring Peter Brocco) before making her first appearance on television in a 1950 episode of Robert Montgomery Presents with Richard Derr.
Wyatt's career in film began to stagnate during the 1950s, having become one of the many Hollywood celebrities to be blacklisted by Senator Joseph McCarthy; in Wyatt's case, she was blacklisted for protesting at the hearings of the Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, DC in 1951. She then moved to New York City and focused her attention on television, after which she only occasionally returned to film.
However, Wyatt would return to Hollywood three years later for quite possibly her most well-known role. From 1954 through 1960, Wyatt played Margaret Anderson on the popular television sitcom Father Knows Best (co-starring Elinor Donahue as her daughter), a role for which Wyatt won three Emmy Awards. In 1977, she reprised this role for a Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas television special.
After Father Knows Best ended, Wyatt went on to make guest appearances on such programs as Wagon Train, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (with Nehemiah Persoff), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (with Janet MacLachlan), Insight (two episodes, including one with Sally Kellerman), Love, American Style, and, of course, Star Trek. Her role on the latter series (and her subsequent reprisal of that role on Star Trek IV) has acquired her a great deal of recognition amongst Star Trek fans. Of her role on Star Trek, Wyatt has stated: "I get fan mail from Father Knows Best and Lost Horizon, but the Star Trek mail gets more and more." [1]
Throughout the 1970s, she appeared in several TV-movies including Amelia Earhart (with Stephen Macht, Susan Oliver, Garry Walberg, and Dallas Mitchell), Superdome (with Michael Pataki and Susan Howard), A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (with William Wellman, Jr., David Ogden Stiers, and Gail Strickland), The Nativity (1978, with John Rhys-Davies and W. Morgan Sheppard), and The Millionaire (1979, with Edward Laurence Albert). In the meantime, she continued to make guest appearances, with credits including Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law (with David Soul and Bill Zuckert), Medical Center (with Darleen Carr), Fantasy Island (starring Ricardo Montalban, in an episode with Theodore Bikel and George D. Wallace), and The Love Boat (in an episode with Julie Newmar). She also co-starred with Robert Foxworth, Robert DoQui, Logan Ramsey, and Rex Holman in the 1976 adventure film Treasure of Matecumbe.
Throughout the 1980s, Wyatt had a recurring role as Katherine Auschlander, the wife of Norman Lloyd's character, in the television series St. Elsewhere. During her time on this series, she worked with the likes of Chad Allen, Ed Begley, Jr., Ronny Cox, Norman Lloyd, France Nuyen, Deborah May, Jennifer Savidge, Brian Tochi, and Alfre Woodard. Her other TV credits during this era included guest spots on Quincy, M.E. (with Robert Ito and Garry Walberg), Happy Days, another episode of The Love Boat (this one with William Windom), another episode of Ricardo Montalban's series Fantasy Island (with Adrienne Barbeau), Starman (with Jeff Corey), and the TV movies Missing Children: A Mother's Story (1989, with John Anderson and Noble Willingham) and Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989, with Aron Eisenberg, Norman Lloyd, and Warren Munson).
Retired from acting, she is reported to have suffered a mild stroke in the 1990s from which she recovered well. She later died of natural causes in Bel Air, California in 2006 at the age of 96. She is survived by two sons.
External links
- Template:IMDb-link
- Jane Wyatt at Wikipedia