Bonnie Bartlett

Early life

Bartlett was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, the daughter of Carrie and E.E. Bartlett, and raised in Moline, Illinois. Her father was an insurance salesman and a failed actor, and she was determined to live out his dream.

In 1947, Bartlett graduated from Moline High School.

Career

Bartlett studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and first got her start in television playing the heroine "Vanessa Dale Raven" on the soap opera Love of Life from 1955 to 1959, replacing actress Peggy McCay. Ironically, she had a previous role on the program, in which briefly she played the character of Ellie Crown, a role which was played for several years by Hildy Parks. She then moved on to nighttime roles in the 1960s.

Her most widely known role was as Ellen Craig on St. Elsewhere. Initially an infrequently recurring character, she took on greater prominence in the 1984–1985 season when the storyline included Ellen and Mark's marital problems. The storyline deepened in the next season when their son was killed and they had to raise their granddaughter. Bartlett won back-to-back Emmys, and was made a contract player. Further difficult material included Ellen and Mark's divorce and slow reconciliation following the loss of their granddaughter in a custody dispute with her birth mother.

For many years Bartlett accepted only small guest appearances on such programs as Gunsmoke, The Rockford Files, and The Waltons, as well as a recurring role as Grace Snider Edwards on Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1977. Her acting career picked up considerably in the 1980s, including the miniseries V and North and South: Book II.

Bartlett and husband William Daniels made Emmy Awards history in 1986 when they became just the second real-life married couple to win acting awards on the same night. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne first accomplished the feat in 1965. Bartlett and Daniels won for their portrayals of Dr. Mark and Mrs. Ellen Craig on the TV series St. Elsewhere. They later acted together again when she played a college dean who employed her husband's character, in a season of Daniels's ABC series Boy Meets World, and their characters later married.

When St. Elsewhere ended in 1988, Bartlett's career moved to a wide variety of guest-starring appearances, including major roles on Wiseguy as a tough and corrupt matriarch of a sewage business; as Andrea Drey, Secretary General of the United Earth Oceans Organization (UEO) on seaQuest DSV; on Home Improvement as Lucille Taylor (Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor's mother); and on ER as Ruth Katherine Greene. Bartlett's last feature film role to date was in the film Valediction.

Screen Actors Guild

Bartlett and Daniels both served on the Screen Actors Guild's Board of Directors.

Awards and honors

Bartlett was added to the Hall of Honor at her alma mater, Moline High School in Moline, Illinois.

Personal life

Bartlett met her husband, actor William Daniels at Northwestern University. They were married on June 30, 1951.

In 1961, she gave birth to a son, who died just 24 hours later. They later adopted two children: Michael, who became an assistant director and stage manager in Los Angeles, and Robert, who became an artist and computer graphics designer based in New York City.