Marjorie Lord

Marjorie Lord was an actress best known for her role on the popular family sitcom Make Room for Daddy. The series, known as The Danny Thomas Show after the fourth season, aired from 1953 to 1965, and starred Danny Thomas and Lord as widowers who eventually get married and raise their blended family together.

Lord appeared on more than 200 episodes of the series as the cheery and loving wife Kathy. She joined the show near the end of the fourth season and stayed on until the series’ end. She reprised her role again in the 1965 TV variety hour The Danny Thomas Special, and in 1967’s The Danny Thomas Hour. Additionally, she appeared in the short-lived 1970s series reboot Make Room for Granddaddy.

Lord also appeared on the television series Public Prosecutor, Your Show Time, The Adventures of Kit Carson, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, The Loretta Young Show, Wagon Train, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and Sweet Surrender.

She got her start in films in 1937, including lead roles in two Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey comedies: On Again-Off Again and High Flyers. She went on to appear in the movies Johnny Come Lately, starring James Cagney; Frank Capra’s Riding High, with Bing Crosby; and Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! with Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller.

She also worked in the theater, starting as a performer at the age of 16 in the play The Old Maid, co-starring Judith Anderson and Helen Menken.

Lord is the mother of Oscar-nominated actress Anne Archer, from a marriage to actor John Archer. In 2004, Lord published her memoir, A Dance and a Hug.

She died November 28, 2015, in Beverly Hills, California. She was 97.