Janet Landgard Dies: ‘The Donna Reed Show’ Regular Was 75

Dan Clarendon November 12, 2023, 10:42 am

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Paul Petersen and Janet Landgard in 'The Donna Reed Show' (1958-1966) — Everett Collection

Paul Petersen and Janet Landgard of ‘The Donna Reed Show’

Janet Landgard, who played Karen on The Donna Reed Show, has died. She was 75 years old.

Paul Petersen, who costarred with Landgard in the 1960s ABC sitcom, told The Hollywood Reporter that she passed away this week after a brief battle with brain cancer.

“She never told me how gravely ill she was from the cancer that took her life earlier this week,” Petersen wrote on Facebook on Friday. “Typical behavior from the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had on the last three years of The Donna Reed Show. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out… a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence.”

Janet Landgard and Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer, 1968

Everett Collection

Landgard was born on December 2, 1947, and raised in Pasadena, California. She was still a high schooler when she started her screen career in 1963, guest-starring as a different character on The Donna Reed Show and popping up in an episode of My Three Sons.

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Landgard’s other screen credits include three films, 1968’s The Swimmer — in which she played a young woman whom Burt Lancaster’s character formerly hired as a babysitter — as well as 1969’s Land Raiders and 1972’s Moonchild.

She also joined Lloyd Bridges and Janet Leigh in the 1971 TV movie The Deadly Dream.

“‘Easy on the eyes’ doesn’t begin to describe her,” Petersen wrote in his Facebook post. “We were always close, no matter the time or distance. She gave me a share in her racehorse, Pioneer Prince, who didn’t run well in his last race [on] November 3rd at Santa Anita, where he broke well but faded down the stretch. And doesn’t that describe all of us. You will always be with me, Janet… in my heart, and on that television signal spreading out through the universe. Not a bad way to transition!”