Born 1937 in Tacoma, Washington, American actress Elinor Donahue appeared in dancing-chorus film roles from the age of five, she was at one point a ballet-school classmate of future Fred Astaire partner Barrie Chase.
Donahue was a child actress working in vaudeville and had several bit parts in movies as a teenager, including Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), starring Elizabeth Taylor. She played one of the daughters in Three Daring Daughters in 1948 and appeared as Mamie Van Doren’s sister in Girls Town (1959).
Donahue is best known today for playing the role of Betty Anderson, the eldest child of Jim and Margaret Anderson on the 1950s American sitcom Father Knows Best. In 2015, she played the role of Mrs. Chumley in Judson Theatre Company’s production of the Pulitzer Prize play Harvey, by Mary Chase. Donahue called the role her “swan song.”
Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of a young Elinor Donahue in the 1950s and 1960s.
She was also on The Andy Griffith show as Ellie. Quite lovely.
ReplyDeleteSister of former talk show host Phil Donahue.
ReplyDeleteNo relation to Phil Donahue
Deletewhat an amazing shot! Also the girl is so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteStar Trek too! (Metamorphosis) excellent episode!
ReplyDeletebeautiful lady and a good actress. bio-Elinor Donahue (Actor) .. Ellie Walker
ReplyDeleteBorn: April 19, 1937
Birthplace: Tacoma, Washington, United States
Trivia: Elinor Donahue's mother, a theatrical costumer, 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. Striking out on her own at 12, Donahue attained work as a Las Vegas showgirl at 14; the fact that she was underage was discreetly covered by her agent and her co-workers, who took a paternal interest in the impressionable young dancer's career. Breaking her ankle at 16, Donahue decided to forego dancing in favor of acting; she was almost immediately cast in the role of sensitive teenager Betty Anderson in the long-running (1954-60) sitcom Father Knows Best. It was the first of many TV stints for Donahue; over the next three decades she would appear as a regular on such series as The Andy Griffith Show, Many Happy Returns, The Odd Couple, Mulligan's Stew, Please Stand By and Doctor's Private Lives. She became a special favorite of writer/director Savage Steve Holland, who cast Donahue as the ditsy mother of a teen-aged secret agent on the 1987 Fox network series The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, and as the voice of a suburban mom who spends her waking hours trying to learn an indecipherable foreign language on Holland's cartoon series Eek! The Cat. This fey, eccentric quality was carried over into Donahue's performance as the eternally bathrobe-clad wife of Bob Elliot and mother of 30-year-old paperboy Chris Elliot on the 1990 Fox sitcom Get a Life. Donahue's film appearances have been less frequent; when she showed up in a cameo as a department store clerk in Gary Marshall's Pretty Women (1987), there was an audible appreciative sigh of recognition from movie audiences everywhere. Elinor Donahue was the wife of Columbia TV executive Harry Ackerman from 1961 to Ackerman's death in 1991." as a young boy I would have loved to see her in the Las Vegas showgirl costume. :)