Jane Wyatt, the Catholic actress who won three Emmy awards for her portrayal of Margaret Anderson, the mother on the genial 1950s television comedy "Father Knows Best," died Oct. 20 at her home in Bel Air. She was 96 years old.

In 2004, Wyatt was honored with a lifetime achievement award for her theatre, film and television career as well as her charitable work by Catholics in Media Associates (CIMA). "My religion has always mattered a very great deal to me, so this is really an honor," she said.

Two of Wyatt's "Father Knows Best" children were present at the CIMA luncheon that year in Beverly Hills to celebrate her honor. Billy Gray (Bud Anderson) called his TV mom "curious, witty, candid and caring." And Elinor Donahue (Betty "Princess" Anderson) said Wyatt served as her sponsor when she converted to Catholicism 11 years ago.

Wyatt reprised the role in a pair of "Father Knows Best" made-for-TV reunion movies in 1977.

Born in 1910, Wyatt could list among her ancestors a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the founder of Columbia University. Her mother, Euphemia Van Rensselaer, was a contributing writer to Commonweal and Catholic World magazines and was president of Catholic Big Sisters. She also directed plays in which daughter Jane acted and which were written by another daughter, Elizabeth.

Wyatt was dropped from the New York Social Register when she left college to become a Broadway actress. She shifted between stage and film, adding television to her repertoire when the medium developed after World War II.

Her breakout film role came in the 1937 movie "Lost Horizon." She was also featured in "None but the Lonely Heart" (1944) and "Gentlemen's Agreement" (1948). A member of the Catholic Actors Guild, she starred in "Father Knows Best" for six seasons.

She told a Chicago Tribune reporter once that in the early 1950s opportunities for her to star in films dried up for a while, apparently because she was on the Hollywood blacklist after joining other stars in 1947 to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.

In 1978, she played St. Anne in an ABC made-for-TV movie, "The Nativity." In the late 1960s, she played Amanda, the human mother of the half-human, half-Vulcan Mr. Spock on "Star Trek," a role she reprised in one of the series' 1980s reunion movies.

She starred in eight radio dramas between 1947 and 1954 for Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton's Family Theater radio series on the Mutual Broadcasting System. She also appeared on Father Peyton's "The Joyful Hour" in 1949. She appeared twice on "The Triumphant Hour," in April 1950 and November 1952. Wyatt also appeared in a program titled "Pray the Rosary With Father Peyton and the Stars."

In 1986, she won the Franciscan Communication Award for being "everyone's favorite mother" on "Father Knows Best." That year she became an honorary board member of Support Our Aging Religious, founded to help raise money to ease the unfunded retirement liability of U.S. women and men religious.

Also in 1986, she told the first national convention of Catholic Golden Age, an organization for Catholics over 50, that old age was a gift and "I thank God for it every single day." She added, "I hope God will let me thank him until I'm 100. I'm dying to know what's going to happen, all the new discoveries. We might even discover peace."

Wyatt was an on-camera co-hostess of "A Most Unusual Man," a film about Father Peyton produced in 1993 by Family Theater, which still distributes the film. In 1994 she was master of ceremonies for the Gabriel Awards, presented by Unda-USA, now called the Catholic Academy for Communications Arts Professionals.

Wyatt's husband of 65 years, Edgar Bethune Ward, died in 2000. She is survived by two sons, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

---CNS