Jane Wyatt

Petite brunette actress American actress Jane Wyatt (1910-2006) starred in several Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937). She is best known for her role as homemaker and mother Margaret Anderson in the television comedy series Father Knows Best (1954-1960) and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the Science-Fiction television series Star Trek (1966-1969). Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award winner.


Italian postcard by Tip. Ed. Taurinia, Torino (TET). Photo: Columbia.


Italian postcard by Vecchioni & Guadagno, Roma. Photo: Columbia EIA. Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt in Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937).

Lost Horizon

Jane Waddington Wyatt was born in 1910 in Campgaw (now part of Mahwah), New Jersey, but grew up in New York. Her father, Christopher Billop Wyatt Jr. worked on Wall Street as an investor; her mother was the drama critic Euphemia Van Rensselaer Waddington.

She was directly descended, on her mother's side, from the van Rensselaer family, one of the earliest Dutch families to settle in the Colonies, as early as 1638, and which at one time owned most of what is now New York City. Jane attended the fashionable Chapin School and later Barnard College.

After two years of college, she left to join the apprentice school of the Berkshire Playhouse at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where she played an assortment of roles for six months. One of her first jobs on Broadway was as an understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of 'Trade Winds'.

Her career move cost her her slot on the New York Social Register. Wyatt made the transition from stage to screen and was placed under contract at Universal.

There she made her film debut in director James Whale's courtroom drama One More River (1934) starring Diana Wynyard. She went back and forth between Universal and Broadway. Her most famous film role was as Ronald Colman's lover in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937).


Italian postcard by Vecchioni & Guadagno, Roma. Photo: Columbia EIA. Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt and Margo in Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937). Art director Stephen Goosson won an Academy Award in 1938 for this film. The convent of Shangri-La was built in Streamline Moderne style at the Columbia lot in Burbank.


Italian postcard by Vecchioni & Guadagno, Roma. Photo: Columbia EIA. Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt in Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937).

Father Knows Best

During the 1940s, Jane Wyatt starred in the films None but the Lonely Heart (Clifford Odets, 1944) with Cary Grant, Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947) with Gregory Peck, and the Film Noir Boomerang! (Elia Kazan, 1947) with Dana Andrews. She also starred in the Film Noirs Pitfall (André De Toth, 1948) with Dick Powell and House by the River (Fritz Lang, 1950) with Louis Hayward.

Her film career suffered due to her outspoken opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy, the chief figure in the anti-Communist investigations of that era. She was temporarily derailed for having assisted in hosting a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet during the Second World War, though it was at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Wyatt 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. Many people remember her best for her role as Margaret Anderson, the mother in the TV comedy series Father Knows Best (1954-1960), with Robert Young as her husband. The classic sitcom chronicled the life and times of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. Wyatt won three consecutive Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Margaret Anderson.

She played Spock's mother in a 1967 episode of the original Star Trek series. 20 years later, she appeared in a feature film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy, 1986). In between, she remained in the public eye as a fixture of such made-for-television features as You'll Never See Me Again (Jeannot Szwarc, 1973) and Amelia Earhart (George Schaefer, 1976).

Jane Wyatt died in 2006 at home, in Bel-Air, California. She was 96 years old. Her funeral was at the Church of St Martin of Tours in Brentwood, California. She married investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward in 1935 and they remained together till his death in 2000. They had two sons, Christopher and Michael Ward. With her husband, she was interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, CA.


American Arcade Card.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1125. Photo: Universal.


Dutch postcard. Robert Young, Lauren Chapin, Billy Gray, Elinor Donahue and Jane Wyatt in Father Knows Best (1954-1960). The Dutch title was Vader weet het beter.

Sources: Tom Weaver (IMDb), AllMovie, Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.