Lauren Chapin, Youngest Child on ‘Father Knows Best,’ Dies at 80
For six seasons, she was Kathy, a giggly tomboy whose father, played by Robert Young, called her Kitten. Her offscreen life, however, was harrowing
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/arts/television/lauren-chapin-dead.html
(Not positive this is a gift link)
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As she wrote in a well-received memoir, Ms. Chapin was raised by a sexually abusive father and an alcoholic mother who pushed her three children into acting careers. Her life completely fell apart, she said, after “Father Knows Best” went off the air in 1960, and she began to feel like a 14-year-old has-been.She spent nearly two decades in crises — addicted to heroin, working as a call girl, in prison for check forgery, stints in psychiatric facilities — until she said she became a born-again Christian and evangelical minister. She reportedly raised millions of dollars to help abused children and gave religious testimonials about suffering and endurance.
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By the time she was 18, she said, she made several suicide attempts, was married and divorced, and had eight miscarriages. In 1964, she sued her mother for her television earnings, claiming her mother had forced her to sign over all rerun benefits. She later said she never earned any money from syndication.
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