Pregnancies of Stars? How Were They Handled?

[McGillicuddy]

There's been quite a few times in scripted-TV history where a major female cast member gets pregnant during the shows run. The first probably being Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy.

How was it handled in storylines when a cast member was in "a family way"?

Lucille Ball was carrying with Desi Arnaz Jr. on the set of ILL, so they just decided to have Lucy Ricardo get pregnant with (and give birth to) Little Ricky.

Elizabeth Montgomery was pregnant in real life, so they wrote it in the storyline with the eventual arrivals of Tabitha and Adam on Bewitched.

Cindy Williams got pregnant during the run of Laverne & Shirley so her character was wedded to the never seen character, George Meeney, whose child she carried shortly before the actress left the series.

Cast member Lisa Kudrow of Friends got pregnant during the run of this show, so they came up with the outragious storyline that she was the surrogate mother for her half-brother and sister-in-law, to explain hers.

I believe Debra Messing was pregnant during the run of Will and Grace, but they hid her behind props, or had her wear bulky clothing.

[Marvo301]

When an actress in a TV series gets pregnant in real life producers and writers are left with two choices. Write the pregnancy into the show or find creative ways to hide the pregnancy from the camera. It's much easier if it's a family sitcom I think. For example when Meredith Baxter Birney became pregnant during the run of Family Ties they just wrote it into the script and little Andrew Keaton was born. If it's a show about single people who for the most part don't have a significant other the choice is usually to hide the pregnancy. This was the case when Julia Louis Dreyfus became pregnant during the run of Seinfeld. They hid her behind furniture, matresses, etc. and Elane Benes did not become pregnant on the show.

[McGillicuddy]

I was wondering about Meredith Baxter Birney---then Growing Pains' Joanna Kearns was probably not pregnant since this show just copied off Family Ties. How about Candice Bergan on Murphy Brown?

[Marvo301]

Joanna Kerns only child, a daughter, was born in 1978 seven years before Growing Pains premiered. So when her character Maggie was pregnant with Chrissy she was not pregnant in real life. Candace Bergen's only child, also a daughter was born in 1985 three years before Murphy Brown hit the airwaves. So when Murphy was pregnant with Avery it was a storyline pregnancy only.

[McGillicuddy]

I think I'll add to this thread, wheather or not a pregnancy is just scripted or real--

Tina Cole (Katie) on My Three Sons?
Linda Kaye Henning (Betty Jo) on Petticoat Junction?
Jean VanderPyl on The Flintstones?

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...it's practically a legend that after Barbara Eden filmed the pilot for "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" in December 1964, she discovered she was pregnant. This is how creator/producer Sidney Sheldon remembered she broke the news to him, shortly after the series had been sold to NBC in February 1965 for the following fall, in his autobiography, "The Other Side of Me":

Jorja {his wife} and I were at a friend's house for dinner when I received a telephone call from Barbara.
"Sidney, I have to see you."
"Fine, Barbara, I'll be in the studio in the morning and-"
"No. I have to see you tonight."
"Is something wrong?"
"I'll tell you when I see you."
I gave her the address.
She arrived an hour later. I took her into the den. She was near tears.
"You'll have to replace me."
I was stunned. "Why?"
"I'm pregnant."
It took a moment for this to sink in. "Congratulations."
"I'm sorry to do this to you."
"You haven't done anything to me. You're staying on the show."
She looked at me in surprise. "But how-"
"Don't worry about it", I said. "I'll take care of it".


The next morning, he met his director (at the time), Gene Nelson, who'd already heard about it.

"What are we going to do?"{, Gene asked.}
"We're going to raise the camera higher. We'll shoot her above the waist, cover her with more veils, and use long shots. We can manage. I don't want to replace her."
He was thoughtful for a moment. "Neither do I."
And we managed to finish the {first half of the} season from the third week to the eighth month of her pregnancy.

What Sheldon did was to film Barbara with as little attention to her blooming figure as possible. He filmed as many episodes as he could during April and May of 1965, with numerous close-up "inserts" of her, dropped into various episodes, filmed as late as July. From episode two {"My Hero?"} through eleven {"Whatever Became of Baby Custer?"}, there were indeed more "above the waist" shots, with more veils draped around her harem costume [Barbara also helped by occasionally folding her arms over her chest at times to divert viewers from seeing her growing tummy].
However, during a scene in episode nine, "The Moving Finger", when Jeannie read Tony's "giant note" in her bottle, the camera showed her standing sideways...and she "stood out".

After the eleventh episode, Barbara took her extended "pregnancy break", and delivered Matthew Michael Ansara in August 1965. The following October, production of the remainder of the first season episodes resumed (with "Where'd You Go-Go?").

[treky]

Rhea Perlman & Shelley long both became pregnant once during the run of "CHEERS", so they just wrote Rheas into the storyline by having Carla become pregnant, but with Shelly they showed her from the waist up, standing behind the bar, or carrying something in front of her (a tray, etc.) And later, when Kirstie Allie became pregnant they had that storyline where Sam and Rebbeca decided to try and have a baby. Then, when she miscarried they wrote that they decided not to.
On "FRASIER" when Jane Leeves became pregnant they wrote a storyline that Daphne was becoming fat, and she went off to a "fat farm".
On "KATE & ALLIE" once, Susan St. James was pregnant so they had her lying in bed with a broken leg in one episode, and in another one, since it was a Halloween episode, they had her in a rabbit costume for the entire show.

[TJL]

Two cast members from two different Star Trek series became pregnant during their respected series runs - one show acknowledged it, the other didn't.

On Star Trek Voyager, Roxanna Dawson's pregnancy wasn't written into the script, so her character chief engineer B'Elanna Torres was often seen sitting down or hiding behind equipment, for a while her character wore a long labcoat/smock to hide her growing belly, which made her look like a doctor more than an engineer.

Personally, I got a kick out of the lab coat ruse. It was so obvious she was pregnant. Sure enough, after the birth, Lt. Torres ditched the coat.

On Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Nana Visitor's pregnancy was written into the script when her character Major Kira became the surrogate mother to Chief O'Brien's wifes unborn child when a medical emergancy threatened her life and the life of the baby.

[sh3k]

yes you are right thes actress are so professional with there work,and do real hard work and work while pregnency,i know a morning show host her name is nadia khan and she is very popular in his field,and working on her show during pregnency and worked till the 1 month before delievery,and to hide this she used to wear bulk clothes and did her job greatly...

[catlover79]

* In the case of Linda Kaye Henning, she never had kids in real life, so the Petticoat Junction pregnancy story was just that - a story.

* It's true that Elizabeth Montgomery's pregnancies with Robert and Rebecca Asher were written into Bewitched as Tabitha and Adam. But her first pregnancy (with William Asher Jr.) wasn't written in. That was when the series had just premiered and it was too risky to do a pregnancy storyline with the newlywed Samantha and Darrin. So, they did lots of tight closeups and wide shots on Liz, covered her up in flowing nightgowns, and when she left to go on maternity leave, all the scenes that didn't include Sam were filmed (i.e. the Darrin/Larry office/client scenes). But watch the first few episodes of the first season and you can still tell that Liz was pregnant. Her face is fuller, and even in some of the wide shots the viewer can see her rapidly growing shape.

* Another real-life pregnancy written into a show was Patti LuPone's on Life Goes On. Since LGO dealt with social/family issues all the time, it had to be pretty easy to write a past-40, high-risk pregnancy into the show - and it also gave Patti LuPone some meaty material to work with.

[old grouch]

Elinor Donahue was pregnant toward the end of season 3 of 'Father Knows Best'. They hid it by having her wear a big coat, and then she was gone for a few episodes.

Phylicia Rashad was also pregnant sometime during 'The Cosby Show'.

[retrofan05]

Lauren Lane who played C.C. on "The Nanny" was pregnant in one of the later seasons of the show. It was never really mentioned most of the time and they had her wear bigger clothes. However, in one of the episodes they made a joke about how it's so obvious in TV shows when a person is pregnant and they try to hide by having the person hide behind plants or big pieces of furniture. Ci Ci then preceded to walk in carrying a plant. It was really funny.

[treky]

Originally Posted by TJL

Two cast members from two different Star Trek series became pregnant during their respected series runs - one show acknowledged it, the other didn't.

On Star Trek Voyager, Roxanna Dawson's pregnancy wasn't written into the script, so her character chief engineer B'Elanna Torres was often seen sitting down or hiding behind equipment, for a while her character wore a long labcoat/smock to hide her growing belly, which made her look like a doctor more than an engineer.

Personally, I got a kick out of the lab coat ruse. It was so obvious she was pregnant. Sure enough, after the birth, Lt. Torres ditched the coat.

On Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Nana Visitor's pregnancy was written into the script when her character Major Kira became the surrogate mother to Chief O'Brien's wifes unborn child when a medical emergancy threatened her life and the life of the baby.

I never knew all that! (and I call myself a "treky")

I know that Gates McFadden was pregnant once during the run of "STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION" and they hid it by having Dr. Crusher wearing her lab coat a lot, and they'd show her from the waist up, standing behind the diagnostic table or a bed in sick bay, etc.

[McGillicuddy]

Jackie Harris and Roseanne Conner on Roseanne both had babies on the show, I don't think Roseanne was pregnant in real life, but was Laurie Metcalf?

[McGillicuddy]

Originally Posted by catlover79

* In the case of Linda Kaye Henning, she never had kids in real life, so the Petticoat Junction pregnancy story was just that - a story.

* It's true that Elizabeth Montgomery's pregnancies with Robert and Rebecca Asher were written into Bewitched as Tabitha and Adam. But her first pregnancy (with William Asher Jr.) wasn't written in. That was when the series had just premiered and it was too risky to do a pregnancy storyline with the newlywed Samantha and Darrin. So, they did lots of tight closeups and wide shots on Liz, covered her up in flowing nightgowns, and when she left to go on maternity leave, all the scenes that didn't include Sam were filmed (i.e. the Darrin/Larry office/client scenes). But watch the first few episodes of the first season and you can still tell that Liz was pregnant. Her face is fuller, and even in some of the wide shots the viewer can see her rapidly growing shape.

* Another real-life pregnancy written into a show was Patti LuPone's on Life Goes On. Since LGO dealt with social/family issues all the time, it had to be pretty easy to write a past-40, high-risk pregnancy into the show - and it also gave Patti LuPone some meaty material to work with.

Thats interesting about Elizabeth Montgomery, in the first season of Bewitched. I think I might have known she was pregnant (a first time) but had forgotten.