I’m thinking based on the result of Hunter Tylo suing Spelling Productions over her firing on Melrose Place, no:
I thought she had just had the baby prior to filming…?
I got a kick out of the way the producers of "The Nanny " handled Lauren Lane’s (Cece Babcock) pregnancy…They kind of hid her behind props but in an amusing, obvious way … In one scene she was holding a framed poster for a show called “Baby” over her stomach and she once made a snarky reference to the way the show Seinfeld handled Julia Louis Dreyfuss’s pregnancy - something like “hiding her behind props, who did they think they were fooling?” - uttered while Lane was holding an oversized purse or some other prop over her stomach.
Missed bringing up the Nanny method by 2 minutes! It was hysterical the way they did it.
Yep, you’re right. I was remembering her not being her usual svelte self in the movie, but that was because filming was right after she had her baby.
Forty-five posts, and no one has mentioned Charlene Tilton on Dallas?!? :eek:
How quickly we forget! Her last season as Lucy Ewing, they never showed her from the shoulders down; she was always standing behind a chair or something.
The actress who plays Claire on Modern Family was pregnant first season. She carried a lot of laundry baskets around.
Don’t. Even.
She was still on the show though, usually via phone calls and stuff. It was really distracting as they did some weird filter or stretching or something in shots featuring her. I guess to make her face look less fat, as she really did (quite understandably, mind you) chunk up a bit. Honestly would have looked better if they’d just left things alone.
There are also pitfalls for acknowledging the actress is pregnant in the plot. Cheers started a story arc about Rebecca Howe wanting to have a child with Sam as a way to write in Kirstie Alley’s real pregnancy. Alas, after a couple of episodes were aired, Alley miscarried; the plot was immediately dropped.
Emily Procter during either season 9 or 10 of CSI: Miami. They changed her style (lots of dark pantsuits with jackets) and she stood/sat behind a lot of desks and boxes.
Rachael Leigh Cook during season 2 of Perception.
I don’t ever remember her being dressed otherwise. 
I think the answer is “it’s complicated”. The previously referenced Hunter Tylo lawsuit certainly set a precedent and served to make producers wary, but the decision was more nuanced than “you can’t fire her because she’s pregnant” - it delved into whether the pregnancy constituted a material change in her appearance and whether it could have been adequately worked around.
But Tylo was not established on the show at the time of her pregnancy.
Most of the pregnant actresses we have been discussing were major characters on show that were established, long running and profitable franchises. Yes, they may have made “life choices that hurt a production” but when that production takes up over a decade of your child-bearing years I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that production to work with you a little bit. And from a financial POV, I can only imagine that the producers of a show like Seinfeld or Frasier would much rather work with their lead actresses than risk losing them for forever,
She’s pregnant again right now, and I think should be filming the next series of House of Lies at the moment. I wonder how they’re handling it.
Shirley Jones told the story at an event I was working. According to her, the pregnancy was unknown to everyone but the producers and costume designer. So Robert Preston was quite surprised by that kick. Shirley broke the tension by saying “Rob, I’d like to introduce you to Patrick Cassidy.”
See also Married With Children.
Jennifer Beals, in the 3rd season of the L Word. Her character explores Buddhism and wears flowing clothes, later she is mostly hidden behind jackets, oversized bags, and other props. Also, no more sex scenes for her :rolleyes:
Sarah Jessica Parker in one of the seasons (either 5 or 6) of Sex and the City. The writers just wrote around her pregnancy, and I think there were fewer episodes in that season as well.
And for three or four episodes thereafter, they had her in a hospital bed in traction, with the bed tray always in place to cover her belly.
On Roseanne, Laurie Metcalf was pregnant, and they wrote it into the show, but the problem was that she was huge at the beginning of the “pregnancy” season, and they tried to hide it for two or three episodes, not well, while she made the announcement, and established that she was pregnant, then suddenly she was about 7 months pregnant.
Sela Ward was pregnant for part of a season of Sisters. There are lots of shots of her sitting on a couch with a pillow on her lap. I think the producers got lucky, and she wasn’t terribly big by the time shooting ended, and she had the baby over the summer.
Kaley Cuoco just got married, and that was followed by the sudden decision on the show for Penny to become engaged to Leonard on TBBT, after all those seasons of waffling, probably in anticipation of her possibly becoming pregnant.
Judy Garland was pregnant with Liza at the time she filmed her sequences for Till the Clouds Roll By in October-November 1945. Garland was mostly filmed from the waist up, but when her full figure is visible in the “Sunny” and “Who?” numbers, she’s not too obviously pregnant, IMO.
Susan Lucci was once pregnant and they didn’t write it into her “All My Children” character Erica Kane. So they did a plot were Erica was depressed, stayed in bed and got fat eating bon bons all day.