Jane Wyatt

The Gloved Rebel

Jane Wyatt was born into a New York aristocratic family that didn't understand what their daughter was doing on stage. Her father was a Wall Street banker, and her mother wrote for fashion magazines. But she decided that Broadway theaters interested her far more than debutante balls at Manhattan's private clubs.

And that's how it all began.

In 1934, she signed her first contract with Universal Pictures. She wasn't chasing cheap fame, since her family fortune was already secure. She simply wanted to act and step away from the social expectations of American upper-class society.

Her role in Lost Horizon (1937) put her on the world map as the embodiment of serenity in the valley of Shangri-La. Frank Capra saw in her a mix of natural elegance and contained strength. That shoot cost two million dollars, an astronomical figure for the Great Depression era that nearly bankrupted Columbia Pictures.

The Blacklist Punishment

The industry wasn't always kind to her. Wyatt publicly opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee in the late 40s. She took part in protests in Washington against ideological censorship, and it cost her right away.

For a time, the major studios turned their backs on her, so she sought refuge in theater and B-movie productions such as House by the River (1950). Fritz Lang directed her in that dark drama, where she played a woman trapped in a web of family lies.

In 1954, the project came along that changed her public image forever. Father Knows Best made her Margaret Anderson, the prototype of the perfect housewife of the 50s. She won three consecutive Emmy Awards for this role between 1958 and 1960.

No one suspected she hated aprons.

Despite her image as a traditional mother, Wyatt never abandoned her interest in bold scripts. In 1967, she accepted the role of Amanda Grayson in the episode Journey to Babel of the original Star Trek series. She played Spock's human mother with a dignity that fans of the franchise still analyze at conventions.

A Refuge in Science Fiction

She played that same character almost twenty years later, in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). By then she was a respected veteran who earned nearly as much for her presence as for her on-screen dialogue.

And the gamble paid off.

Her career stayed active well into the 90s. She appeared in a range of television projects, including a role in the series Crónicas de San Francisco (1993). She never announced an official retirement, because she preferred that work stop calling her naturally.

She died of natural causes at her home in Bel-Air on October 20, 2006. She was 96 years old and left behind more than 200 acting credits in the actors' union archives.