From Deseret News archives:
Jane Wyatt knew best
Wyatt died last weekend at the age of 96. And though she had a fine career as an actress — starring in "Lost Horizon" and appearing in dozens of other movies — she spent much of her time defending "Father Knows Best" and the types it portrayed. In 1966 she said, "We tried to preserve the tradition that every show had something to say ...we weren't just five Pollyannas."
In hindsight, the program was like a Norman Rockwell painting — filled with cheery lovable characters and a non-threatening humor that was middle America's idea of itself. But where Rockwell went on to examine race problems and show the strife of people who missed out on the middle America of his earlier work, "Father Knows Best" became an emblem of the patriarchal, insulated lives led by many Americans. Feminists winced at the title of the show, and many families snorted at the white-picket-fence world where children were never violent and sitting up straight at the dinner table was a major problem.
Still, Wyatt was right. The show did have something to say. Perhaps it didn't show the nation as it was, but it spoke to the sunny ideal that would help Americans make the transition from World War II to a peace-time economy.
Were there families in America like the toothy and happy Anderson family? Certainly. But even if none had existed, "Father Knows Best" still worked as a dream version of life for many young people setting out to create families. It wasn't a mirror held up to society. It was an air-brushed, touched-up portrait of family life that people aimed for.
Few got there. Wyatt and her Anderson bunch were always too perfect. But by giving the country a television show that promised more than any family ever could deliver, Wyatt and her clan helped Americans deliver more unity than they could have delivered otherwise.
