Meredith Baxter has written her autobiography and she talks about her mother, Whitney, in great length.
I skimmed through the book at a bookstore, and I'll probably check it out at the library because it looks interesting.
She does talk about Hazel a little bit.
Here's what I remember. According to Meredith:
Whitney didn't like playing the third banana on Hazel.
Whitney didn't like the mundane routine of going to the same old dingy studio 5 days a week.
As the star of the show, Shirley Booth, had a lot of clout, and Whitney felt that Shirley was in cahoots with the lightning director to light Whitney badly.
Whitney also felt that Shirley had a say in her wardrobe, and made sure that she wore mostly drab gray or beige outfits after the show went to color.
Meredith hardly ever saw her mother during the Hazel years. Whitney would leave for the studio at 5am and return home late at night exhausted, and would retire to her bedroom and crash.
Whitney made her children call her "Whitney" instead of Mom when they were in public because she didn't want the casting directors or anyone else to think of her as an older mother figure.
Whitney and her writer-husband created "One Day at a Time" as a pilot for her. She wanted to play the mother and Meredith the daughter. They shopped it around to the networks. Unfortunately, none of the networks would buy it. When it finally did sell, 5 years later, Whitney was not offered the part because she was considered too old. She was never even invited to audition. When the show became a success, Meredith said her mother was devastated knowing it could have been her in the role that made Bonnie Franklin famous.
Meredith also talks about her mother's illness and death.
There are also some pictures of Whitney taken in her later years.

Thanks for the great info! I will definitely look into that.

I didn't even know Whitney Blake was Meredith Baxter's mother!

You can get a great look at Whitney at her best on her episode of The Andy Griffith Show, as attorney Lee Drake. Certainly not the grim or heavyset person Andy mentions to Helen (implying that he went to see a male attorney, not a potential female rival)! Whitney was fantastic in that episode. Personally I think Whitney was a true beauty.

My favorite story about Whitney is when she was ill and a nurse asked if Allan (Whitney's husband) was her son. Allan was a couple of years older than Whitney!! Allan was a nervous wreck because he felt Whitney would explode. Instead, she burst out laughing. I loved that story. Imagine the relief!! :lol:

As to Whitney in drab dress, or poor lighting, I always thought she was one beautiful woman on Hazel.

dahur1, good point above you made. Whitney always looked very attractive on the show. Also, Hazel always speaks well of Missy on the show and they all seem to get along so well I find it hard to believe Shirley Booth would conspire against Whitney.

As to Whitney in drab dress, or poor lighting, I always thought she was one beautiful woman on Hazel.

Me too! Her clothes were better than the uniform Hazel wore.

Whitney was always dressed looking very sexy on Hazel, those tight sweaters could wake the dead. If anyone was dressed drabbily it was Hazel, even when she was out of uniform her dresses were pretty plain and blah looking. But Whitney was always in top form in a tight dress and top. Vah vah vah vooom! I do have an interview on tape that Whitney did on radio with Tom Snyder a couple years before she died and in it she said she never even knew that Bobby Buntrock had died till several years after (I believe she said it was a decade later!) I remember thinking she didn't sound very sweet, actually kind of hard in the interview. But it's been a long time since I heard it. I have it on tape somewhere, I should listen to it again. But I don't remember much else, don't remember her saying anything negative about Hazel or Shirley Booth, I would have remembered that. I suspect a lot of Meredith's book is made up of negative lies that unfortunately help sell books. Seems no one buys a book unless it's filled with rotten comments on people they've known.

...plus Meredith is sharing her memories from when she was 5 or 6 years old.

...plus Meredith is sharing her memories from when she was 5 or 6 years old.

Meredith was born in 1947.
She would have been 14 at the start of Hazel (1961).

BTW, does anyone else see the strong resemblance between mother and daughter? I never noticed it before until I saw Meredith on Oprah a few weeks ago. I think she looks more like her mother as she's aged. I think its her eyes--plus she has a short hairdo.
http://www.damnimcute.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/meredith-baxter.jpg

Sometimes when a parent mentions something, even to a teenager, it may stick with the child even though it was an offhand remark. Maybe there was just an instance when Whitney thought she was not being cast in her best light, etc. -- and from that perhaps minor frustration, Meredith extrapolated.

I was just reading comments supposedly from Brian Keith first about being angry that Family Affair was cancelled, and then that he was really quite tired of doing the series anyway. These are contradictory, but the latter may have been true on a bad day. Whitney's comments may have also been "bad day" inspired.

By golly, you're right! I never thought Meredith looked like her mother when she was young, she had more of a buck tooth look than her mother. But now in her old age, if you smoothed out the wrinkles on Meredith, she does indeed look a lot like her beautiful mother. Even her mouth looks like Whitney's now, which I never thought it did before. Seems Meredith has grown into her mother's looks, albeit a wrinkled version. By the way, I'd rather see her wrinkled with a natural looking face and mouth than with plastic surgery and her face all pulled back with her mouth a mile wide the way these poor old plastic surgeoned former starlets look today. Even worse is when they get their lips blown up so they no longer even closely resemble themselves, Cher & Goldie Hawn both look like they've been punched in the mouth.:eek:

Sometimes when a parent mentions something, even to a teenager, it may stick with the child even though it was an offhand remark. Maybe there was just an instance when Whitney thought she was not being cast in her best light, etc. -- and from that perhaps minor frustration, Meredith extrapolated.

I was just reading comments supposedly from Brian Keith first about being angry that Family Affair was cancelled, and then that he was really quite tired of doing the series anyway. These are contradictory, but the latter may have been true on a bad day. Whitney's comments may have also been "bad day" inspired.
That's exactly what I was thinking! Did you ever talk about something with one of your parents, older sibling or elder relative about something that happened or was said years ago, and you find out that you had a complete misinterpretation? "Oh I thought it this happened...", "No that never happened at all, where did you get that idea?"

By the way, I got the idea Meredith was younger when her mother was on Hazel, I should have figured that out.

Her clothes were better than the uniform Hazel wore.

If anyone was dressed drabbily it was Hazel, even when she was out of uniform her dresses were pretty plain and blah looking.

I think you guys hit the nail on the head.
Shirley Booth had to wear that same drab, pale blue maid's uniform in every episode and she was the star of the show! It wouldn't be hard to imagine that she may not want to stand next to someone in a two-shot who was dressed in a beautiful, colorful outfit because they would stand-out, and she might be overshadowed or upstaged (But Hazel had such a strong personality and big voice, plus that red hair, so I don't think that would have been a problem anyway).

On the other hand, I've been watching the show daily, and Whitney is usually dressed in earth tone colors. She does occasionally wear pinks, blues, and reds, so it wasn't always beige or gray.

Whitney's birth name was Nancy Ann Whitney. Then her daughter played a character named Nancy Lawrence Maitland on Family. Meredith's partner in real life is named Nancy Locke. Interesting how the name Nancy keeps figuring into Meredith's life in one way or another!!

I read the book just this last month. I got a kick of Meredith telling her Jr High School friends " my Mom is Ann Baxter". I remember Hazel and wondered if Whitney's married last name was purposely carried over to the show. Many show business kids are left with nannies, and servants. A different life than mine.

Meredith Baxter has written her autobiography and she talks about her mother, Whitney, in great length.
I skimmed through the book at a bookstore, and I'll probably check it out at the library because it looks interesting.
She does talk about Hazel a little bit.
Here's what I remember. According to Meredith:
Whitney didn't like playing the third banana on Hazel.
Whitney didn't like the mundane routine of going to the same old dingy studio 5 days a week.
As the star of the show, Shirley Booth, had a lot of clout, and Whitney felt that Shirley was in cahoots with the lightning director to light Whitney badly.
Whitney also felt that Shirley had a say in her wardrobe, and made sure that she wore mostly drab gray or beige outfits after the show went to color.
Meredith hardly ever saw her mother during the Hazel years. Whitney would leave for the studio at 5am and return home late at night exhausted, and would retire to her bedroom and crash.
Whitney made her children call her "Whitney" instead of Mom when they were in public because she didn't want the casting directors or anyone else to think of her as an older mother figure.
Whitney and her writer-husband created "One Day at a Time" as a pilot for her. She wanted to play the mother and Meredith the daughter. They shopped it around to the networks. Unfortunately, none of the networks would buy it. When it finally did sell, 5 years later, Whitney was not offered the part because she was considered too old. She was never even invited to audition. When the show became a success, Meredith said her mother was devastated knowing it could have been her in the role that made Bonnie Franklin famous.
Meredith also talks about her mother's illness and death.
There are also some pictures of Whitney taken in her later years.

Well, first Shirley Booth did not ride good looks to stardom. And she was a star, a major one at that. An Oscar, several Tony awards, that is no accident. Booth knew how the business worked and she didn't want anyone stealing the show out from under her. Blake looked good on the show, and in fact, her primary function on the show was to serve as eye candy. Why would George put up with an overbearing maid like Hazel, well if you had a wife who looked like Dorothy (Whitney) and she wants Hazel, she gets Hazel. That was Whitney's role on the show, really her only role. The show was Hazel, not Maid About The House or Hazel's Family, Booth made sure she was the focus of the series.

Those are very good comments. Even many of the drama series of that era, like "12 O'Clock High," strove to include "eye candy" as you've indicated the fulfillment by Whitney's character.

I've always thought that Whitney was more attractive than Meredith, but that's a very high standard of comparison for anyone...!

Those are very good comments. Even many of the drama series of that era, like "12 O'Clock High," strove to include "eye candy" as you've indicated the fulfillment by Whitney's character.

I've always thought that Whitney was more attractive than Meredith, but that's a very high standard of comparison for anyone...!
Beauty is, of course, always a matter of personal taste. There is no denying that they could have put an Ethel Mertz dress on Whitney and she still would have been drop dead gorgeous. Almost all the leading women on TV at that time were lookers. My personal faves for the most gorgeous leading women on TV from that era would be: Whitney Blake, Marjorie Lord of "Make Room For Daddy", Jean Byron from "The Patty Duke Show" and Connie Hines from "Mister Ed".

I always thought that the opening credits, especially the various theme songs, were arranged to make Whitney Blake (and later Lynn Borden) appear in the best possible light. All 3 opening themes shifted to a sort of burlesque-type music when Whitney & Lynn appeared on-screen, which said in a way "Look at the beauty here!", so at least she was not made to look bad there, no matter how she appeared otherwise.

I alway thought Whitney Blake's looks were very underrated but I don't know if her talent was. Actors always want to do more but don't always have good judgement about how they should fit into a show. If they want to do more, they can be so good that the producers and fans demand they be used more. Stars are usually stars because they can, and should, carry the show. Sad if she felt Shirley Booth was somehow holding her back. I thought Whitney was very sexy on the show. But it is too bad she didn't get One Day at a Time. Don't know it would've been a hit, but she almost surely would've been much better than Bonnie Franklin in every way.

Today, I was watching an old rerun of Cannon on Me-TV, and Whitney was the guest star! This was a real treat because I don't think she acted that much after Hazel. I'm guessing this was around 1974-1975. She still looked attractive, but I almost didn't recognize her because she had longer, shoulder-length hair, and I'm used to her short 'do on Hazel.

I agree with the earlier comment about the beauty of Whitney Blake. Even when I watched the show as a child, I thought that she was beautiful.

Certainly Whitney reaped financial rewards because One Day at a Time was a nice size network hit and also ran several years in syndication. As creator, she got residuals every time the show ran.

In regard to Whitney wanting the One Day at a Time/Ann Romano role, I remember her as being quite a bit older than Bonnie Franklin -- so I looked 'em up: Whitney b. Feb 20, 1926... Bonnie b. Jan 6, 1944 -- wow, a bigger difference than I'd thought!

Regarding her appearance on Cannon: There's a fairly long list of women who went to longer hairstyles after their longrunning role with short styled hair had ended (and I guess long-to-short as well). It's entirely possible that her short styles on Hazel were the producers' preference. Whitney's hair had already become longer when she did her 1967 appearance on The Andy Griffith Show.

On the other hand, Lynn Borden's hair was quite long on Hazel, so evidently back then, Whitney could've let hers grow if she'd wanted too...!

That quote is from a 1962 satire of "Hazel" called "Strange Interlude with Hazey," as published in MAD magazine. It employed the Eugene O'Neill story with each of the characters wearing smiley face masks as they go through an "episode", while the "real" characters express their true thoughts.

In that panel, "Hazey" stands in front of "Messy" ("Mrs. G.") in one scene, leading the "real" Whitney Blake to sputter about once again being upstaged.

Sadly, that reflects how Whitney Blake must have felt. I always thought she was stunning (of course, in the first-run years, I was entering my "tweens" and thought most any blonde was a knockout), but you can tell by the fourth season she was tiring of playing second fiddle to Hazel. In the first three seasons, she always seemed livelier and more animated, but in the S4 intro, you could tell she'd rather being doing anything than fumbling through her purse for the car keys....thus the angry icon at the start of this post!

Ms. Blake seems to have been a pretty intelligent woman, so she must have realized when she signed on to play the part of Dorothy that she was third billed and the name of the show was "Hazel". The two lead characters were Hazel and Mr. B.

Ms. Blake needed to thank her lucky stars for landing on a hit show and been happy with that.

In recent discussions of same-sex marriage, there was shown a picture of Meredith Baxter (now 66 years of age) with her partner. She looks eerily like Whitney Blake did in her later TV appearances. Of course, in the 1970s, both Whitney and Meredith appeared in an ABC-TV special, "The Woman Who Looks Like Me, in which they played a mother and an estranged daughter....

...There's a fairly long list of women who went to longer hairstyles after their longrunning role with short styled hair had ended (and I guess long-to-short as well). It's entirely possible that her short styles on Hazel were the producers' preference....

Not exactly the producers' preference. Look at the "Hazel" cartoons in The Saturday Evening Post and you'll notice each of the main characters in the TV show has a certain resemblance to their Ted Key counterparts. Hazel could translate easily to Shirley Booth; Mr. B., Don DeFore; Dorothy, Whitney Blake, and so on. The short hairdo Whitney Blake wore as the TV "Missy" could be morphed into the cartoon version very easily.