Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Accidental Family: Teddy Quinn and Jerry Van Dyke

Accidental Family aired from September 1967 until January 1968 on NBC.

Jerry Van Dyke played nightclub comedian Jerry Webster, one of tv's many widowers, confronted with the problems of raising a young son Sandy played by Teddy Quinn. In this series father decided literally to " farm out" his son by purchasing a farm in California's San Fernando Valley as a full time home for the boy and part-time home for himself, between performing commitments. Farm Manager Sue Kramer ( Lois Nettleton), a pretty divorcee whose daughter, Tracy ( Susan Benjamin), just happened to be Sandy's age , served as de facto governess for the boy and foil for Jerry. Ben McGrath ( Ben Blue), the farm handyman , and Marty Warren ( Larry D. Mann), Jerry's friend and lawyer, rounded out the cast of regulars.

Lois Nettleton's Obituary From The New York Times

Lois Nettleton, 80, Dies; Acted on Stage and TV
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: January 22, 2008

Lois Nettleton, an actress whose dramatic and comic dexterity in theater, film and television earned her wide public recognition and deep professional respect for more than a half century, died on Friday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 80.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, her friend Dale Olson said.

Ms. Nettleton, who had a soft, almost breathy speaking voice, made an indelible impression in 1973 when she took over the role of Blanche DuBois in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Streetcar Named Desire.” Critics applauded the courage her character displayed in the face of corruption and broken, magnolia-scented dreams. In a review for The Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate, Rex Reed called her performance, starkly different from previous ones, “shatteringly brilliant.”

Her extensive work in television included the role of Norma in “The Midnight Sun,” a 1961 episode of “The Twilight Zone” about an ever-hotter Earth, which is considered a classic by students of the series. Her many other television roles included appearances on early dramatic shows like “Studio One” and “Armstrong Circle Theater” and more recent ones on popular shows like “Seinfeld” and “Cagney & Lacey.” She also appeared for three years on the daytime drama “General Hospital.”

Her movies began with a bit part on Elia Kazan’s “Face in the Crowd,” and she was one of the last contract players at MGM. In an interview with Back Stage in 2004, Ms. Nettleton said she was first cast as “the plain nice girl or the unhappy wife next door.” Her vehicles later became quite varied, ranging from the film adaptation of Williams’s “Period of Adjustment” to “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

Ms. Nettleton told Back Stage that “the joy in acting is playing as many different characters as possible.” She said she turned down many roles that did not interest her and favored “mature roles.”

Lois Nettleton was born in August 1927, in Oak Park, Ill. Her family was poor and her parents divorced when she was young. In an interview with After Dark in 1972, she said she used fantasy to escape her circumstances, developing an ambition to act in the process. She put on little shows in her backyard.

In 1948, she was Miss Chicago and a semifinalist in the Miss America pageant.

After graduating from high school, Ms. Nettleton studied at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, then moved to New York to join the Actors Studio, where she learned the Method approach to acting.

Ms. Nettleton made her Broadway debut in 1949 in “The Biggest Thief in Town,” with Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times calling her work “pleasantly fresh and disarming.”

In 1955, Ms. Nettleton was understudy to Barbara Bel Geddes in Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and occasionally got to play the role of Maggie. In 1959, she won a Clarence Derwent Award for best supporting performance by a nonfeatured actress for her portrayal of Shelagh O’Connor in “God and Kate Murphy.”

In 1976, Ms. Nettleton was nominated for a Tony Award for a Broadway revival of Sidney Howard’s “They Knew What They Wanted.”

She told Back Stage that she would have liked to have spent more time in New York concentrating on theater, but that she had to take care of her ailing mother in Los Angeles. There, she became best known for her television work, including being a regular on “In the Heat of the Night” and appearing in popular series like “Murder, She Wrote,” and “The Golden Girls.” She was nominated for several Emmies.

Ms. Nettleton was divorced from Jean Shepherd, the radio host and author; they met when she called his show. She left no immediate survivors.

For another review of Accidental Family go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Family