Robert Young obit
gjw
Best
by Terri Roberts
We’d known him for so long he felt like one of the family. He first
entered our living rooms—and our hearts—playing a devoted father
and family man; years later he came to personify the kind of caring,
compassionate physician people long for. Audiences responded to his
obvious integrity. Actors admired his easy charm. In the early,
unregulated years of the film industry, he stood up and fought to
improve working conditions for actors. So when Robert Young, age
91, passed away from respiratory failure on July 21, it was a terrible
loss—not just to the audiences who loved him, but to the entire
entertainment world as well.
The man indelibly etched in our minds as Jim Anderson and Marcus
Welby was born in Chicago on February 22, 1907. His family moved
to Los Angeles in 1915, where he attended Lincoln High School. An
English teacher there suggested he try his hand at drama to help him
overcome his shyness. He did. And so it was in a high school
production of Robin Hood that Robert Young first encountered the
two loves that would change his life. The first was acting—and the
second was Betty Lou Henderson, the woman he would eventually
marry.
After graduating high school in 1925, Young perfected his acting skills
at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. In the meantime, Betty
Henderson had gone on to USC. She was on the verge of marrying
someone else, but when she asked Young for his opinion, he said,
"No, you’ll marry me!" Robert Young and Betty Henderson married in
1933, and were together for an incredible 61 years.
The Young’s eventually raised four daughters—Carol, Barbara, Betty
and Kathy. Eldest daughter Carol Proffitt grew up in the 30’s and
40’s, during the heyday of her father’s feature film career. Because he
was often shooting on location, he was away during much of her
childhood. But when he filmed locally, she recalls, he insisted on
coming home at 6pm on Friday nights for family dinner and a movie.
Carol’s younger sister, Betty Lou Gleason, remembers those evenings
as well. "It was a standing rule," she laughs. "You were welcome to
bring whomever you liked, but Friday night dinner was it."
Though she admits her father’s long absences were hard on her,
Proffitt also appreciates the efforts Young made to compensate for that
lost time. "I didn’t have those times with Daddy, like other children,
because he was gone so much," she says, "so when we were together,
it was real quality time. He tried not to do too much during the summer
so we could go up to the ranch (a family home in Carmel) and have the
summers together. One summer we rented a house in Zuma Beach.
We built a swimming pool at our house in Beverly Hills, and we’d have
pool parties. So we tried to do things like that. And later, during
Father
Knows Best and Marcus Welby, we all tried to connect by being part
of what was going on there."
Gleason concedes that life was different for she and Kathy than for
their older siblings. "(Mom and daddy) were on location a lot when
Barbara and Carol were growing up," she explains. "By the time Kathy
and I came along, the war was over and they’d settled in Beverly Hills.
And daddy didn’t do the kind of location shooting he’d done in
movies." Young’s film career was overshadowed by the success and
wide-spread recognition he gained from his two most popular
television series, Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, M.D. But
before he moved to the small screen, the silver screen was his home.
From 1931-1945 he was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
and made 50 films for that studio. MGM banked heavily on Young’s
likability and kept him fairly straight-jacketed in "nice guy" parts. It
was
usually when he was on loan to other studios that he got the chance to
flex his acting muscles and tackle more challenging roles.
Still, it was an unassuming 1945 fairy tale romance for RKO where he
made his most enduring film impression. As the bitter, war-scarred
veteran who falls in love with an unattractive woman, Robert Young
and his co-star, Dorothy McGuire, stole the hearts of film-goers
everywhere in the now classic fantasy love story, The Enchanted
Cottage.
In a remembrance video put together by Bob Board, Young’s friend
and stand-in for 18 years, Dorothy McGuire remembers, in
voice-over, the effect that The Enchanted Cottage had on its viewers.
"Robert Young received many letters from fans," she recalls, "telling
him they had seen The Enchanted Cottage during their courting days,
and that they watched the film each anniversary of their weddings. I’m
so happy to have been a part of a film that has meant so much to so
many people. Thank you, Bob."
In addition to film and television, Young also worked for several years
in radio. And it was in 1949 that he began playing, on radio, the role
that would later make him a television star — Jim Anderson, in Father
Knows Best. Gleason explains that parts of Father Knows Best were
actually patterned after their own family. The names "Jim" and
"Margaret" were, respectively, the names of her maternal grandfather
and paternal grandmother. "Bud" was her maternal uncle’s name.
Daughters "Betty" and "Kathy" were named for herself and her
younger sister.
Even the addresses were similar. As Gleason recalls, the Anderson’s
lived at 607 Maple; at the time, the Young’s lived at 607 Elm.
Father Knows Best ran five years on the radio before moving to
television, where it premiered on 3 October 1954 in CBS’
10-10:30pm time slot. Although the network canceled the show the
following March, audiences demanded both its return and an earlier
time slot. NBC heeded the outcry. They picked up the show and aired
it at 8:30pm. Father Knows Best ran another five years on that
network and finally retired in 1960. The 1959-60 season proved to be
its most successful; Father Knows Best tied with 77 Sunset Strip for
6th place among all television programs. By that time, Young had been
playing Jim Anderson for more than a decade, and had won a pair of
Emmy awards for Best Actor in 1957 and 1958. After the show
ended, CBS took the unprecedented step of airing repeats in prime
time for two more years; ABC followed for yet another year.
Co-star Jane Wyatt (Margaret) calls Father Knows Best "the six best
years of my life." And she has fond memories of Young, whom she
visited and remained friends with until his death.
"We never saw each other off the set," she remembers, "because we
worked six days a week for the first couple of years, so we only had
Sundays at home. And we had a great common bond because we’d
both been married for . . . well, I’m married 60-something years now
and he would be, too. Probably longer. (Betty Young died in 1994.)
We both had children and were family-oriented, so we had all those
things in common. And Bob had been in the theatre, where I started
off. We just got on very very well. I don’t think we ever had a harsh
word."
In the May 16-22, 1998 issue of TV Guide, Jim Anderson came in
just behind The Walton’s John Walton, Sr. (28% vs. 31%) as CBS’
"Best Dad" in a reader’s poll conducted to mark the network’s 50th
anniversary. But for Elinor Donahue, who played the Anderson’s
eldest daughter, Betty, and who grew up without a father in real life,
Robert Young definitely took first place.
"Mr. Young was, for all intents and purposes, the only daddy I had,"
she admits. "And I felt very very close to him. It wasn’t so much with
words—it was more with actions and looks. When I saw him (in early
February, during a long illness), I was quite prepared for him not to
really know me. But it was instant. He knew who I was; you could see
it in his eyes. He was twinkling. At the end of the conversation I gave
him a little kiss, and I said, ‘I love you, Mr. Young.’ And he kind of
worked his mouth around a bit and said, ‘I love you, too’ and
squeezed my hand. It was really a wonderful, wonderful meeting."
Donahue was 17 when she began playing Betty on Father Knows
Best, and she credits her winning the part with Young’s intervention at
her audition.
"And I don’t think I would have gotten the show if the day that I tested
I hadn’t got so nervous that I burst into tears and couldn’t remember
anything," she laughs. "Normally they would have said, ‘Thank you
very much and goodbye.’" Instead, she recalls, Young took her aside,
got her a coca-cola, and told her to relax and compose herself while
they simply took the next girl in line. Then Donahue thought better of
things.
"I thought, ‘Oh I’ve really blown it now,’" she says. "’I better just do
it
and get it over with.’ So I did the scene and left and that was that. I
got the part.
"His kindness was very quiet—he never made a big show of anything.
He was a gentleman always. A real class act."
Wyatt agrees with Donahue’s assessment of his character, and is also
quick to point out Young’s virtues as an actor.
"He was so fair in his acting," she says earnestly. "He really was.
Generous, I guess, is the word. And he was great fun to play with
because he gave you something to bounce off of. I think we all learned
quite a lot from him."
A year after Father Knows Best went off the air, Young resurfaced
with a short-lived series on CBS called Window on Main Street.
Gleason liked the show, in which her father played a journalist who
had come back home and lived in the local hotel, where he enjoyed
observing the townsfolk outside his window. But, as she admits, "it
was so close to the end of Father Knows Best that nobody knew him
as anything but Jim Anderson." The show only ran from 1961-62.
After Window on Main Street ended, there was a brief return to the
stage and assorted guest shots on other shows. Then, in 1969, Young
returned to series television in the program that made him a star all
over again and introduced him to a whole new generation of television
viewers. As the title character in Marcus Welby, M.D., Young played
the kind of old- fashioned dedicated doctor that now seems to be a
vanishing breed. Marcus Welby, M.D. ran for seven years on ABC
and earned Young his third and final Best Actor Emmy in 1970. The
show ended in 1976.
Throughout the run of Marcus Welby, M.D. , and thereafter, Young
continued to work in made-for-television movies. Of particular note
was his portrayal of a tough-minded senator in NBC’s landmark film,
Vanished, which broke the TV movie mold in two key areas: it marked
the first time a best-selling book had been purchased and produced
especially for the small screen, and it was the first time a network had
risked airing a movie in two parts (March 8 and 9, 1971).
Other television movies followed. In 1972 there was the highly
successful All My Darling Daughters (ABC), which was followed in
1973 with a sequel, My Darling Daughters Anniversary. Then, in 1978
came Little Women (NBC), based on the classic Louisa May Alcott
story of the life and times of the March family.
Once again, Young was reunited with his Enchanted Cottage co-star,
Dorothy McGuire. McGuire played the loving and level-headed
Marmee and Young the March’s distinguished neighbor, Mr.
Lawrence. The success of the TV movie persuaded NBC to turn the
film into a series, with both McGuire and Young reprising their film
roles. That venture, however, was a dismal failure and the show lasted
only a few weeks.
It was Young’s last television series.
In 1984, the aging actor once again took up his stethoscope for The
Return of Marcus Welby (ABC), a movie which dealt with the
sensitive issue of age- enforced retirement. Four years later, in 1988,
came the final film of Young’s career, Marcus Welby, M.D.: A
Holiday Affair (ABC). He was then 81 years old.
But despite all his bright successes—and there were many—there
were also darker times. For decades, Young fought on-going battles
with alcoholism and depression. Some of his fellow actors say they
heard the stories but never saw him drunk. "There was never any
alcohol problem on the set," insists Wyatt of the Father Knows Best
days. "He was marvelous to act with, he was always good-natured and
he was great with the children."
Gleason, however, acknowledges that her father did have an alcohol
problem. "His drinking was never steady, but it did intensify as he got
into his early 40’s," she confesses. "There were always bouts—like
four of them a year, and he’d be in it for two or three weeks. . . He
would try to work and couldn’t; everyone would be OK for a short
time then he would start the cycle all over again."
Young did seek help for his problem through a support group, but was
unable to maintain any long-term sobriety. Later, after he stopped
acting, there were additional problems. In September 1990 he
underwent heart valve replacement surgery. And in 1991, during a fit
of despondency, he tried, and failed, to commit suicide.
It was after that highly publicized incident, says Gleason, that the
family
brought in Gayle Frederick to serve as Young’s health care worker.
Gayle already knew the actor from her days as a nurse at Charter
Oak, where he had gone several times to recuperate after a drinking
binge; Gayle’s husband, John, had known Young since 1971 when he
worked as a technical advisor on Vanished. John Frederick not only
assisted his wife with her duties, but he handled Young’s fan mail and
offered moral support.
From the moment the Frederick’s began working with him, Young
never drank again.
"I found him to be a fascinating person," John Frederick says. "He and
Betty had an enormous library with thousands of self-help books
having to do with the mind, health improvement, etc. I remember
saying, ‘How come, with all these books, you got drunk?’ And he
said, ‘Alcohol was the only thing that would make the fear go away.’
So he was always in fear. "But the interesting thing about it was that
in
1946 he was a man making $3500 a week, which was top of the line
for the studios. And he walked into MGM’s top offices and said ‘I
want out of my contract.’ And nobody did that. Nobody! They had to
wait to be fired. Even the ones who wanted out didn’t do it.
"He was afraid, but he did it anyway. And he did a lot of those things."
Although Young’s last film for MGM had been The Canterville Ghost
in 1945, he was still under contract with the studio. "We’ll never
really
know, but I think what he meant was that there may have been a
problem at MGM," surmises Frederick about Young’s departure. "He
said to me once that he was a star everywhere else but MGM. When
we discussed why he left, he said, ‘Well, look— (Jimmy) Stewart,
Robert Taylor, (Clark) Gable and Robert Montgomery and all those
people went to war, and I didn’t get the parts when they were gone.
Now they’re coming back. What am I going to get now?’ And he was
right. "But he was one of the few people who could move easily back
and forth between radio and television and film. Ultimately, it was just
television."
Young’s acting career spanned over half a century. For 23 years
(1931-54) he worked in film; an additional 34 (1954-88) were spent
in television—a medium that didn’t even exist when he first began, and
one which, in the end, not only brought him his greatest recognition but
made him a treasured star to generations of audiences.
Robert Young’s beloved wife, Betty, passed away in 1994. They were
both great believers in education, and during their 61 years of marriage
they endorsed several educational projects. They helped establish The
Buckley School in Los Angeles and supported The Bishops School in
La Jolla, which was attended by all four of their daughters and two
grandchildren. They also established a sabbatical scholarship for
professors at USC.
Young also played a significant role in the growth and development of
the Motion Pictures and Television Fund. He was elected to the board
of the fledgling Screen Actors Guild in 1935 and served on a number
of different committees. Finally, in May 1937, all the hard work paid
off and the studios were forced to recognize SAG as a legitimate
union.
"It was all just a whole new business, and I always felt he was very
much of a pioneer in it," Gleason says proudly. In fact, she says he was
like that "in just about everything he did."
Robert Young is survived by his four daughters, Carol Proffitt of
Westlake Village, CA; Barbara Beebe of La Jolla, CA; Betty Lou
Gleason of Paradise Valley, AZ; and Kathy Young, of Surprise, AZ.
He also leaves behind six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Kitten8866
RIP Robert Young...
Suzie
Pete S.
the likes of Jimmy Stewart he will be Missed :(
