At least I think that was her name. She was LDS, and church members adored her in the 1960's. Everyone thought that the church was really going places because we had an LDS TV star. Of course, after the series (a rather dumb sci-fi) played out, I don't think she ever did anything ever again short of a few bit roles. What I do remember, though, that when I was a kid going to LDS youth conferences in San Fernando Valley, Heather Young was always on hand to teach a workshop in cast interviewing. She was held up as a successful "LDS TV star" for years after she was a has-been, just like "The Mormon Austronaut" Don Lind was held up as a celebrity long after his time. After all, they helped prove that the church was true.

So who do they have holding up the Mormon pillars of celebrity now? Not Ryan Gosling. Not Aaron Eckhart. Who? Still the Osmonds?

When I was about 8-9, living in Torrance, CA, Mike Lookinland (who played "Bobby" on the popular "Brady Bunch" TV show) was in my stake. He was LDS. Our ward youth softball team played against his ward's team, and it was a "big deal" to have a mormon TV "star" in our midst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Lookinland

Since he was arrested in '97 for drunk driving, I suspect he's no longer mormon...:)

I remember at the height of the Brady Bunch show fame, seeing among other things that Mike Lookinland was born in Utah. I came across some fan magazine material sometime later where it was asked whether Mike was a Mormon, and Mike answered to the effect that he was born in Utah but wasn't associated with the LDS church--in short, a non-Mormon born in Utah.

Now this thread says he was Mormon. It makes me think that Mike saw Mormon membership as a liability in his show business career and just did not want to admit the connection.

kak75 aka kak57 Wrote:
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> Now this thread says he was Mormon. It makes me
> think that Mike saw Mormon membership as a
> liability in his show business career and just did
> not want to admit the connection.

Oh, he was. Active. Sat by him in Stake conferences. Played church ball against him. Other connections.

Our local leaders played up his youthful fame and mormonism, as (of course) a sign that the church was true, and god was rewarding mormons by making them TV stars in sitcoms. Sad, yes -- but that's what they did.

Hey, I was on his team... the family was in the ward.

She was in the play Saturday's Warrior when they did a special presentation at our stake. I can still remember the people gushing over her.

Lex de azavedo invited my mom to a presentation of it at rosemead high school. Mom used to find achieving mormons to come talk at our stake and ward. The people i remember her being buddies with are:
Michael landon
Geoffrey duel
Billy barty
Some male gymnast guy
Gordon jump from wkrp
Dr. Quinn, jane seymour

The mormon church is a soulless, pos corporation. Never forget that.

Billy Barty was in my ward way back. I remember young married's events and talking with him. I worked with his wife, Shirley, in Primary. We had several members of the King family in our stake, some in our ward. Also Shawn Engeman, later known as Shawn King. This was in the early 1970s. Weird to look back at this now.

I resigned from being a Primary teacher because the lessons to the 8 year olds I had to teach were so stupid.Caused some distress among the "authorities." Took me another 10 years to leave.

Oh, and then the ward members asking me, "When are you going to have another baby?"

Irwin Allen borrowed most of the props from Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

It was about some people in a spacecraft crashing into a cheap studio set that was mainly populated with giant shoes and trouser hems. The castaways were occasionally hissed at by a house-sized housecat. Pencils were like telephone poles, and telephones were as big as Studebakers.

This is probably a good time to explain to the listening audience what a Studebaker is, Don.

I am gratified to know that the aliens had rotary dial telephones. Wait a minute... Just who WERE the aliens in the show?

A Studebaker was a very large sedan with round fenders that pulled up to the curb in front of Grandma's house when she was a teenage girl. Grandpa had just been paid for working at the service station, and he was feeling frisky. He hoped to be feeling something else before the night was over. After the sock hop, who knew? He might get lucky.

That was a Studebaker.

donbagley Wrote:
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> A Studebaker was a very large sedan with round
> fenders that pulled up to the curb in front of
> Grandma's house when she was a teenage girl.
> Grandpa had just been paid for working at the
> service station, and he was feeling frisky. He
> hoped to be feeling something else before the
> night was over. After the sock hop, who knew? He
> might get lucky.
>
> That was a Studebaker.

My family had a Studebaker when I was a child. Complete with suicide doors.

"So who do they have holding up the Mormon pillars of celebrity now?"

I guess the closest thing they have these days are Gladys Knight and David Archuleta. There may be some others, but I don't follow this kind of thing very closely.

When I was a kid, the big Mormon celebrity other than the Osmonds was child actor Johnny Whitaker of "Family Affair." And then Gordon Jump hit it big in the '70s on "WKRP In Cincinnati." There were a few athletes, such as the Olsen boys, Harmon Killebrew, golfer Johnny Miller, Carl Yaztrezmski, etc. Then in the '80s, the biggies were Steve Young, Todd Christensen, Dale Murphy, Gifford Neilsen, Marc Wilson, and Danny Ainge.

Retired MLB pitcher Jack Morris is a Mormon too, and he played at BYU in the '70s, but I don't think he was ever really much into the church. Just a super jock. He played for the Detroit Tigers' farm team in my hometown in 1976, in his first pro season. He went to my ward, and I gave him rides to church a few times before he saved up enough money to buy a car. Jack has fallen just a few votes shy of being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. So he's the biggest Mormon celeb I personally knew.

Carl Yaztrezmski is mormon? Really? That sounds improbable - but ...

I thought the same thing when I read the thread

I've worked with Heather Young(it's only her stage name) several times. She is no longer active and happy to be out.

That's nice to hear. I guess her real name was Patricia Kay Peterson. She's from Bremerton, WA, so she must be a good person. The stage name Heather Young did fit her pretty, perky looks, though. You have to give her that.

Don't forget Mike Farrell from MASH. He made several Home. Teaching propaganda videos.

As for people today, Lindsey Stirling is huge.

"Don't forget Mike Farrell from MASH. He made several Home Teaching propaganda videos.'

Farrell acted in some church videos, but in searching the 'net, I've found no evidence that he was ever a Mormon. If he had been a Mormon back in his prime as an actor, that would have been common knowledge in Mormon circles.

The church has hired non-Mormon actors for several productions, including Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck.

Mike Farrell is NOT a Mormon. My mother, a TBM, was a long-term extra on the show, playing one of the nurses. She would absolutely have known if he was a member, and would have told me. To the contrary, she didn't much care for Farrell because of his very liberal political opinions.

On the earlier baseball post: Carl Yastrzemski, a Mormon? I don't think so. Vern Law was LDS (and presumably his son Vance was also). Other Mormons in the majors included the Iorg brothers (Garth and Dane) and Barry Bonnell. IIRC, it was Bonnell who converted Dale Murphy when they were teammates on the Braves. I believe the very obscure Luis Gomez was also Mormon.

Vernon Law and his family are Mormon. They were very good friends with my relatives that lived in Pittsburgh. I met him but that was so long ago. His wife is VaNita and all of his kids had names that started with a V.

Hey If!
My aunt retired from the Torrance School District. I met Mike when I was 9-10; we must be about the same age. Good times, back in the day, those beach cities in L.A. were THE BEST

Cahomegrown Wrote:
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> Hey If!
> My aunt retired from the Torrance School District.
> I met Mike when I was 9-10; we must be about the
> same age. Good times, back in the day, those beach
> cities in L.A. were THE BEST

We may have run into each other :) Palos Verdes stake, our south Torrance ward was part of it, so was Mike's ward.

Probably the lead singers of Imagine Dragons and The Killers.

She did a Mormon cast 2 Lp set, DEBBIE, DIARY OF A MORMON GIRL for Lex De Azevedo's Embryo Records (same label as SW cast from '74) which I think dates about August, '78, also did a LIONESS AND THE LAMB album which credits Lex De Azevedo and has a STRANGE looking album cover, and she was credited on LDS original cast album, CHARLY, A LONG SONG, on Embryo Records, c. 1984.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2015 01:52AM by snagglepuss.

Bryce "thats a clown question bro." Harper is supposed to be a devout member.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2015 01:15AM by yankeedownunder.

One of the previous posts mentions Johnny Whitaker--he did some albums, one of them being a bubblegum rock album spinning off songs from SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS. He also had something to do with the Grand Land Singers on their second album. The Grand Land Singers were a SoCal clone of the BYU Young Ambassadors/Sounds of Freedom/Brigham Young University Singers, which were copied from UP WITH PEOPLE.

I think you might mean Harmon Killebrew

Anyone remember Tina Cole of "My Three Sons" fame? She used to be one of the King Cousins on the King Family show. Then when they decided to marry off one of the three sons on the show of same name, she played the wife. I never missed it after that. We were so proud that a mormon was a big time TV actress.

Saw her in a few TV movies in the 70s. Wonder what happened to her.

NormaRae Wrote:
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> Anyone remember Tina Cole of "My Three Sons" fame?

The set decorator of "My Three Sons," Dave Love ('68-'69), was a mormon. He dated my TBM aunt briefly, and she got us onto the set in 1968 to watch a filming of the show. :)

That probably explains the mormon connection to the show. I believe Barry Livingston, who played one of the sons was also mormon. Maybe there were other mormons on the production team also. But I will always loved (non-mormon) Fred McMurray. One of my favorite old actors.

I remember her from My Three Sons. She still works every now and again. Her last credit was from 2020.

including the very first one. I didn't have a TV of my own until years later, so these viewings were by accident while visiting someone. I remember watching this show and saying to myself, "What a crock..." or words to that effect. Give me Bert I. Gordon's "The Amazing Colossal Man."

But of course it was by Irwin Allen, creator of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "The Poseidon Adventure," "The Towering Inferno," and "When Time Ran Out," so it's really no surprise.

I also remember Heather Young, by name at least. There was an article in the paper, or maybe in TV Guide (this was a long time ago--1968--sorry) about her, where she described her SLC wedding as "the most beautiful ceremony," (again quoting from long-ago memory.) It didn't say whether any infidel friends or relatives were denied admission.

According to IMDB, she has five kids and her last film/TV credit is from 1980. She wrote a musical stage adaptation of "Jane Eyre," date not given, so maybe she made a lateral move to live theater.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0949603/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2

And according to another post on this thread, she is no longer active and happy to be out.

Sounds like a happy ending....

Heather Young’s family was in my ward when I was in my late childhood/early teen years. She was already in CA pursuing her acting career by the time I knew her family, and don’t remember ever meeting her. She has a brother who is a year older than me, and he and I used to ride mini bikes together.

I thought her mom was one of the coolest adults in the ward.

Edit: I assume that this doesn’t matter to anyone, but after a few cobwebs cleared out of my mind, I remembered a few things. I did meet Heather at least once. I came to their home once when she was there for a visit. I also remember attending a youth fireside where she spoke about keeping LDS standards while working in Hollywood. Our ward was divided when I was 15, and even though they were in different wards, her mom and my mom remained friends for the rest of my mom’s life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2022 10:11AM by CrispingPin.

Came up with nothing. There were some off-the-playing field articles that connected Yaz with Bruce Hurst, was LDS, but basically nada. He was born 1939 in Southampton (Long Island) NY (long before the "Hamptons" became a 1%'ers enclave)--not exactly an LDS neighborhood.

Given that both his parents were Polish, I consider it unlikely that he was Mormon.

She has left the church.