Tuesday Lauren Chapin passed away at 80; she became well-known for her feisty Kathy "Kitten" Anderson on Father Knows Best.
On Facebook, her son Michael confirmed her passing, saying:
“The time has come following a five-year battle fought long and arduously. Tonight my mother, Lauren Chapin, passed from her struggle against cancer. I am totally without language right now. As my sister and family go through this really difficult moment, please remember them in your prayers and thoughts.
From 1954 to 1960, Chapin played Kitten, the youngest daughter on the classic show, appearing on virtually every episode.
She earned five remarkable Junior Emmys for her efforts.
Born May 23, 1945, in L.A., she followed her acting siblings Michael Chapin (visible in the 1946 classic It's a Wonderful Life) and Billy Chapin (seen in 1955's The Night of the Hunter) into acting.
Her first employment was an uncredited small role in the Judy Garland interpretation of A Star Is Born from 1954.
Most of her career in the '50s, though, was taken up playing Kitten in the Robert Young-Jane Wyatt family comedy, Lux Video Theatre (1952–1955), Fireside Theatre (1955) and in the film Tension at Table Rock (1956). Father Knows Best was a juggernaut; its title still sits in our vocabulary.
Surprisingly, the three children from Father Knows Best had lived an amazing 71 years (plus) since the start of the show until Elinor Donahue and Billy Gray were both 88.
Chapin was typecast just like many other child stars, and once the show stopped at the start of the '60s he found almost no employment.
She performed one acting role in General Electric Theater in the 1960s. Following that, she appeared in the forgotten film The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (1976), a super raunchy musical that was the exact opposite of her TV image —and also the exact antithesis of her later Evangelical lifestyle.
Twice in 1977 she redrew her role as Kitten when television movies brought the cast back together for The Father Knows Best Reunion and Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas.
Chapin became the mom of a part played by child star Meeno Peluce in the Gary Coleman television film Scout's Honor in 1980, among several other '50s actors (among them Dennis the Menace star Jay North).
Chapin wrote her autobiography Father Does Know Best in 1989, which honestly described her violent home life during youth and examined her religious conversion.
She did not work on-screen again after that until an eight-episode run of School Bus Diaries, a Web series.
Post-acting, Chapin held a brokerage firm's nine-to-five job and also coached natural childbirth. She was a great supporter of Israel and actively participated in religious activities.
Two children survive Chapin; she is also survived by her 89-year-old brother Michael.
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