50 Years of Little House on the Prairie: Bonnie Bartlett (Grace Snider Edwards)

 

Bonnie Bartlett Daniels (born June 20, 1929) is an American retired actress. Her career spans about seven decades, with her first major role being on a 1950s daytime drama, Love of Life. Bartlett is known for her role as Grace Snider Edwards on the Michael Landon television series Little House on the Prairie and as Ellen Craig on the medical drama series St. Elsewhere. Her husband, actor William Daniels, played her fictional husband Dr. Mark Craig, and they both won Emmy Awards on the same night in 1986, becoming the first married couple to accomplish the feat since Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in 1965.

Early life

Bartlett was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, the daughter of Carrie Archer and Elwin Earl Bartlett, and was raised in Moline, Illinois. Her father had been an actor in stock productions across the country, but he gave up acting because her mother wanted to settle in Wisconsin.

In 1947, she graduated from Moline High School. Afterward, she attended Northwestern University, where she earned her degree in 1951.

Career

Bartlett debuted in television playing the heroine Vanessa Dale Raven on the soap opera Love of Life from 1955 to 1959, replacing actress Peggy McCay. She then moved on to night-time roles in the 1960s.

She portrayed Grace Snider Edwards on Little House on the Prairie from 1974–1977 and as Ellen Craig on St. Elsewhere. Each role began as an infrequently recurring character. As Grace Snider Edwards, her character's prominence in the series gradually increased from 1975–1977 following the courtship by and marriage to Isaiah Edwards, played by Victor French. In St. Elsewhere, 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. 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. Bartlett won back-to-back Emmys for her portrayal of Ellen Craig.

For many years, Bartlett accepted only small guest appearances on such programs as The Golden Girls, Gunsmoke, The Rockford Files, and The Waltons. Her acting career picked up considerably in the 1980s, including the TV miniseries V and North and South: Book II, as well as the pivotal role as the mother of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito's characters in the 1988 film, Twins.

Bartlett and husband William Daniels made Emmy Awards history in 1986 when they became 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 on seaQuest DSV; on Home Improvement as Lucille Taylor (Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor's mother); and on ER as Ruth Katherine Greene. Bartlett had a feature-film role to in 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 William Daniels at Northwestern University. They were married on June 30, 1951.

In 1961, she gave birth to a son, who died 24 hours later. They adopted two sons: 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.

Filmography

Film

1976       The Last Tycoon                Brady's Secretary            

1979       California Dreaming        Melinda Brooke               

Promises in the Dark      Nurse Farber    

1982       Frances                Studio Stylist     

1984       Love Letters       Maggie Winter 

1988       Twins    Mary Ann Benedict        

1993       Dave      Female Senator               

1995       The Grass Harp Mrs. Buster       

1996       Ghosts of Mississippi      Billie DeLaughter             

1998       Primary Colors   Martha Harris   

2006       Saving Shiloh      Mrs. Wallace     

2012       Valediction         Anabell Short film

2016       Nina       Recital Stage Woman    

Television

1955–1959           Love of Life         Vanessa Dale Raven       Unknown episodes

1965       The Patty Duke Show     Miss Castle         Episode: "My Cousin the Heroine"

1969       The Jackie Gleason Show             Donna Douglas  Episode: "The Honeymooners: The Honeymoon Is Over"

1973       Emergency!        Eunice Evans      Episode: "Computer Error"

1974–1979           Little House on the Prairie            Grace Snider Edwards    26 episodes

1974       Gunsmoke          Maylee Baines  Episode: "The Foundling"

The Waltons       Martha Rudge   Episode: "The Car"

Gunsmoke          Agnes Benton   Episode: "In Performance of Duty"

1975       Kojak     Joan Milner        Episode: "The Good Luck Bomber"

The Legend of Lizzie Borden       Sylvia Knowlton                TV movie

1976       The Rockford Files           Casey Patterson               Episode: "The Oracle Wore a Cashmere Suit"

1977       Washington: Behind Closed Doors           Joan Bailey          2 episodes

Killer on Board   Debra Snowden               Television movie

1979       Hart to Hart        Myra Bensinger                Episode: "Murder Between Friends"

Salem's Lot         Ann Norton        Television movie

1980       Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case    Norma Joyce      Television movie

Barney Miller     Ellen Milford      Episode: "The Delegate"

1981       ABC Afterschool Specials              Miriam Scott      Episode: "She Drinks a Little"

Knots Landing    Dr. Ruth West    Episode: "Critical Condition"

A Long Way Home           JoAnn Booth      TV movie

1982–1988           St. Elsewhere    Ellen Craig           70 episodes

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (1986–87)

Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Quality Drama Series

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

1982       Barney Miller     Emily Loftis         Episode: "Inquiry"

Lou Grant            Claire     Episode: "Unthinkable"

1983       V             Lynn Bernstein  2 episodes

1985       Hotel     Olga Petrovsky  Episode: "Passports"

1986       The Deliberate Stranger                Louise Bundy     TV movie

1987       Right to Die         Lillian     TV movie

1988       The Golden Girls              Barbara Thorndyke         Episode: "Dorothy's New Friend"

1989       Matlock                Lorraine Maslin Episode: "The Blues Singer"

Murder, She Wrote        Marilyn North    Episode: "Seal of the Confessional"

1989–1990           Midnight Caller Hillary Townsend-King   4 episodes

1990       The Great Los Angeles Earthquake          Anita Parker      

Wiseguy               Harriet Weiss     2 episodes

1992       L.A. Law               Gloria Lee            Episode: "Diet, Diet My Darling"

Room for Two   Francine Luboff                Episode: "Pilot"

I'll Fly Away         Beth Lekatzis     Episode: "Fragile Truths"

1994       SeaQuest DSV   Secretary General of the UEO    Episode: "The Last Lap at Luxury"

1995       The Courtyard   Cathleen Fitzgerald         Television film

1995–1998           Home Improvement      Lucille Taylor      5 episodes

1996       The Faculty         Katherine            Episode: "Bus Stop"

1997–1998           ER           Ruth Greene      2 episodes

1997–1999           Boy Meets World             Dean Bolander  5 episodes

The Practice       Joanne Oz           2 episodes

1997       Touched by an Angel      Emily     Episode: "Venice"

Sleeping with the Devil  Stasha Dubrovich             Television movie

1998       Stargate SG-1    Linea     Episode: "Prisoners"

1999–2002           Once and Again                Barbara Brooks 7 episodes

2000       Touched by an Angel      Lucy Scribner     Episode: "The Grudge"

2002       Firefly   Patience              Episode: "Serenity"

Strong Medicine               Edna Carlyle       Episode: "Discharged"

2003       Touched by an Angel      Loretta Episode: "And a Nightingale Sang"

2004       NCIS      Dr. Sylvia Chalmers          Episode: "My Other Left Foot"

2005       Huff       Margaret             Episode: "All the King's Horses"

2006       Boston Legal      Marguerite Hauser          Episode: "Shock and Oww!"

General Hospital              Miriam Spinelli  2 episodes

2008       Grey's Anatomy               Patient Rosie Bullard      Episode: "Rise Up"

2012       Of Two Minds    Kathleen              Television movie

2013       Parks and Recreation     Paula Horke        Episode: "Women In Garbage"

2017       Better Call Saul  Helen    2 episodes

Book

Bartlett Daniels, Bonnie (January 8, 2023). Middle of the Rainbow: How a wife, mother and daughter managed to find herself and win two Emmys. BearManor Media. ISBN 979-8-887-71044-0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Bartlett