KATHY GARVER More than just Growing Up Cissy

BY RANDY PATTERSON, BOOMEROCITY.COM

ONCE UPON a time in America - specifically on television in America – we enjoyed good, wholesome programming on our TV sets. There were the big three networks and, in many cases, an independent station or three (depending on where you lived).

Swearing was almost non-existent. Problems were relatively simple. Kids showed respect to their elders. Elders didn’t abuse their kids. Sex? Not until the late ‘60s was that subject more aggressively broached.

You probably remember what I’m talking about and would remember, as kids, watching some of the great shows on TV like The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Green Acres, Gilligan’s Island, My Three Sons, and so many more. Those iconic programs led us from black and white to living color... both literally and figuratively. But I digress.

One TV show that I remember watching (and watching a lot - I think I’ve seen every episode at least twice if not more) is the wonderful family TV show called Affair. I know you baby boomers remember it. It starred Brian Keith (who played the bache lor uncle) and Sebastian Cabot (Keith’s “gentleman’s gentleman”).

The premise of the show is Brian’s character’s brother and his wife are killed in a car accident, and he is left to take care of their three children. Buffy (played by the late Anissa Jones), Jody (played by Johnny Whittaker), and Cissy (the oldest sister, played by Kathy Garver) were the nieces and nephew he took in.

I recently had the privilege of speaking with Ms. Garver. Though mostly known for playing Cissy on Family Affair, she also played a many other parts in a variety of other venues and media, especially when she was a little kid.

For instance, she was in the movie The Ten Commandments with the great Charleston Heston. She was also in The Night of the Hunter , as well as guest starred on many TV and radio shows, commercials, and Broadway productions. If that isn’t prolific enough, she is also an accomplished and acclaimed author and a much sought-after voice-over actress.

Recently, I was honored to be able to chat with Kathy. We talked about her career growing up, as well as what she is doing nowadays.

I asked Kathy about something she talks about in her autobiography, Growing Up Cissy, wherein she explains her “thread theory.” I asked her to explain and expand upon it.

“Well, when I started the book - the Surviving Cissy book, and it was primarily my autobiography - I just kind of started with how I got Family Affair and then went on to kind of a chronological approach. As I was writing, it occurred to me that what I was putting together was my life, the fabric of my life - and in that fabric, there were many, many threads that, when I looked at them and saw what they represented, so far, has been making a whole blanket of which is my life. So, it became an analogy. There are

Hollywood threads, there are lacy currents, there are threads from a stage curtain and things like that that were representative of what was happening as I was going through my career, which started when I was three.” Later in our chat, Kathy reflected on the totality of her career.

“When I look back, after my long career, I’m very proud of everything that I have done. So many of the things that I have done have become classic… I mean, The Ten Commandments is a classic, and Family Affair is a classic. I did an animated series identified with them. And the one that remains most classic is Spider Man and His Amazing Friends, where I played the voice over and created the voice of Fire Star, and she’s still very much out there. They made new little statues of her last year, and now there’s a bigger statue of her coming out. So, I think I’ve enjoyed the career.

“I think that those ‘60s shows were so classic because, from a business point of view, there were only three channels. At the time, there was just CBS, NBC, ABC, and then a couple local channels. So, everybody watched it - the entire nation was watching it, millions and millions of people.” The entire video of this interview with Kathy Garver can be viewed on Boomerocity.com, where she talks more about what is next for her as an actor, how she is convinced that family-oriented shows still have an audience, and how she navigates friendships in the current political climate. Also, you can keep up with Kathy on her website, KathyGarver.com, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Randy’s first interview was at the tender age of 13 with none other than Col. Tom Parker. Thirty-six years later, he founded the webzine, Boomerocity.com, and has conducted more than 400 interviews with some of the most interesting people in music.