Elinor Donahue is best known for her pivotal role in American TV hit sitcom “Father Knows Best”, but her career didn’t end when the show did, she went on to shine both on screen and off.
The Washington-born actress is now 86 years old and most recently had a guest role in long-running soap opera “The Young and the Restless”.
Elinor Donahue played the role of Betty “Princess” Anderson, the oldest daughter on the TV show “Father Knows Best.” This show was all about a middle-class family living a perfect American life in the Midwest.
It first started as a radio program in 1949 and was on the air every Thursday until 1954. After that, CBS brought it to television, keeping only Robert Young, who played the dad, Jim Anderson, from the radio version.
During her six years on the popular show, which was one of the top ten most-watched TV shows in America at its peak, Elinor also made appearances in “Crossroads” and “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.”
Her schedule was super busy, and she once said she didn’t even have time to watch her own show.
“By the time we’d get home at night and have our dinner, we’d be getting ready to learn our lines, go to sleep to get up and do it again. So, I never saw the show,” she told Closer.
Elinor was born in Tacoma in 1937, and by the time she was a teenager, she became the main provider for her family when her acting career took off. She starred in movies like “Love is Better than Ever,” which featured Elizabeth Taylor, and “Girls Town.”
Since Elinor was still a kid living in California, she needed an adult with her on set all the time. With her dad not around and her mom working full-time, her mom, Doris, decided to quit her job to support her.
After “Father Knows Best” wrapped up, Elinor continued her acting journey by appearing in shows like “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Star Trek,” and “Mork & Mindy.”
The 86-year-old movie star has been in over 70 TV shows and films, including Winter Wonderland and Pretty Woman.
Elinor tied the knot with her first husband at the age of 19 and shared that she thought getting married and having a baby would help her feel more like an adult.
“I had just turned 19 and I was like a 13-year-old 19,” she told Emmy TV Legends.
I never really got the chance to become a real adult, so I was pretty immature. I didn’t have any friends in high school. I thought that if I just ran away, got married, and had a baby, I would finally feel like a grown-up.
So, she made up her mind that she would say yes to the next person who asked her. That person ended up being Richard Smith, the sound guy from “Father Knows Best.”
“We had gone to see a movie and after he whispered in my ear ‘I love you and I’d like to marry you’ and I said ‘Okay,” she said laughing.
She welcomed her first son, Brian, with her husband, but they ended their marriage six years later in 1961.
In 1962, she tied the knot with famous TV producer Harry Ackerman, and together they had three sons. He was 20 years her senior, and they enjoyed a happy marriage for nearly 30 years until he passed away in 1991.
The next year, she married her third husband, contractor Lou Genevrino. For the past ten years, she has been away from the spotlight.
