Lauren Chapin was born on May 23, 1945, in Los Angeles. Her older brothers were also child actors. Michael Chapin appeared as the character Red White in a series of Westerns. Billy Chapin may be best known for Night of the Hunter (1955). Lauren Chapin was singed to a contract with Columbia Pictures. She trained with mime Marcel Marceau and dancers/choreographers Marge and Gower Champion.
Lauren Chapin guest starred on an episode of Lux Video Theatre before being cast as Kathy, called "Kitten" by her father (Jim Anderson, played by Robert Young), on Father Knows Best. She was nine years old at the time. The show ran for six seasons and the show would be rerun for another three seasons on primetime network television. While Father Knows Best was still on the air, Lauren Chapin guest starred on more episodes of Lux Video Theatre and an episode of Fireside Theatre. After Father Knows Best ended its run, she guest starred on an episode of General Electric Theatre. It would be her last acting appearance for several years. She had bit parts in the movies A Star is Born (1954) and Tension at Table Rock (1956).
The next several years of Lauren Chapin's life would not be happy ones. She dropped out of Pasadena High School, married at 16, divorced at 18, and became addicted to heroin. She got sober in the 1970s. During that decade, she appeared in the movie The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (1976). On television, she appeared in two Father Knows Best reunions: The Father Knows Best Reunion and Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas, both in 1977. In 1980, she appeared in the TV movie Scout's Honor. Her final acting job was as bus driver Mama Bev on the YouTube series School Bus Diaries from 2016 to 2017.
In addition to acting, Lauren Chapin was an ordained minister. In the Eighties, she worked at a brokerage firm and later worked as a talent manager. Among her clients were Jennifer Love Hewitt. She was also on the board fo A Minor Consideration, an organization whose purpose is to protect child actors.
Lauren Chapin may have had a brief acting career, but she will always be remembered as Kathy on Father Knows Best. She did well in the part, Much of what set Father Knows Best part from other sitcoms was that it was more realistic, right down to the performances of the children on the show, including Elinor Donahue as eldest daughter Betty and Billy Gray as son Bud. As played by Lauren Chapin, Kathy could have been a little girl many might know from real life, a precocious tomboy with a soft heart. Later in life she did a good deal of charitable work. Both as Kathy on Father Knows Best and through her work later in life, Lauren Chapin leaves behind a considerable legacy.
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