Elinor Donahue

Mary Eleanor "Elinor" Donahue (born April 19, 1937) is an American actress. The naturally red-headed Donahue played Robert Young's eldest/popular daughter, Betty Anderson, on the 1950s sitcom, Father Knows Best. She was married for nearly 30 years to producer Harry Ackerman, whom she met on the set of that series.

Early life and career

Donahue was born in Tacoma, Washington, the daughter of Doris Genevieve (née Gelbaugh) and Thomas William Donahue.^[1] Her mother was a theatrical costumer, who moonlighted as a department store saleswoman in order to pay for her daughter's dancing lessons. Appearing in dancing-chorus film roles from the age of five, Donahue was at one point a ballet-school classmate of future Fred Astaire partner Barrie Chase. Donahue was a child actor working in vaudeville and had several bit parts in movies as a teenager, including Love is Better Than Ever (1952), starring Elizabeth Taylor.

Father Knows Best

She achieved stardom for her role as the elder daughter, Betty, on the television family series Father Knows Best.

Donahue has had roles on many television programs. She appeared in 1960 with Marion Ross as fictitious sisters in the crime drama, The Brothers Brannagan in the episode entitled "Duet". She portrayed Miriam Welby, Tony Randall's love interest on ABC's The Odd Couple, compassionate working mother, Jane Mulligan on Mulligan's Stew, and Hunnicut, the evil nurse on Days of our Lives. Donahue was also featured in several episodes of CBS's The Andy Griffith Show as pharmacist Ellie Walker, even getting a mention in the famous opening credits. Walker was intended to be a love interest for Andy Taylor, but she decided to leave after deciding that she and Griffith had no real romantic chemistry, and she appears only during the first season (1960-1961).

In 1964, Donahue appeared as Melanie in "The Secret in the Stone" in the NBC medical drama, The Eleventh Hour, starring Jack Ging and Ralph Bellamy.

In the 1964-1965 season, Donahue costarred as Joan Randall, the daughter of Walter Burnley, played by John McGiver, on the CBS sitcom Many Happy Returns about the complaint department of a fictitious Los Angeles department store. Mark Goddard played her husband, Bob Randall.

She also appeared in numerous other television shows as a guest actress which included Star Trek's second-season episode "Metamorphosis" in 1967. She played Commissioner Nancy Hedford alongside Glenn Corbett as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive as well as in such motion pictures as Pretty Woman (1990). She played Sister Bertrille's Sally Field's sister, Dr. Jennifer Ethrington, in three "Flying Nun" episodes (1968-1970). Much later, Donahue was a guest actress on The Golden Girls, as Stan Zbornak's third wife Katherine (1989).

1990s and later

Donahue played Gladys, the mother of Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott), on the sitcom Get A Life! (1990-1992), and had a recurring role on the CBS drama series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

In 1998, Donahue published a memoir entitled In the Kitchen with Elinor Donahue, in which she relived some of her memories of Hollywood along with providing more than 150 of her recipes.^[2]

Donahue was married to the producer Harry Ackerman, whose list of credits included Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, Bewitched, and Gidget. A mother of four sons, she has been living with her third husband, contractor Louis Genevrino, whom she married in 1992 in California.

References

External links

• Elinor Donahue at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Elinor Donahue at the Internet Movie Database