By Paul Dennis
Kathy Garver, the petite beauty of the hit series Family Affair, went to Catholic parochial school through eighth grade. Then, during her four years in public high school and the beginning of her college education, she became disenchanted with religion. Suddenly, last year, her feelings changed and doubts vanished. She resumed being a Catholic–"a real Catholic," she said.
"I had made a deal with God," Kathy explained. "I told Him, ‘I know You are there, but let me find out why You are there. I want time to think it over before just accepting you blindly.'"
Her big soulful brown eyes become luminous when she sighs, "Sometimes I get a flash: Maybe I ought to be a nun."
Then she shrugs her lovely shoulders, "I don't know...I'm just living and looking for answers."
The world of independent thinking opened up stunningly for her when she went to college, UCLA. "I went through a lot of stages in college. I started out idealistically. Oh, I was so open and outgoing! I thought people would be the same and that there would be total communication between people. But I found that people just don't communicate.
"I guess I was naive. People have different values and people think in different ways, and there's a way of talking to people. When I was a freshman, living in the dorm, I learned that everybody had something to say. Then, during my sophomore and junior years, I lived in a sorority house, and there I learned how to get along with people–contrasted to living in the dorm–where I learned more from people."
College, especially when the student is living away from home, is the time when so many old values are challenged, especially religion. Studying evolution shook her belief in the biblical story of Adam and Eve.
She quit going to church with the rest of her family–her parents, Hayes and Rosemary Garver; her older sister Beverly. That's when she made her "deal" with God, asking for time to think it over.
"Trying to find yourself, in terms of religion, reminds me of being in a car, trying to find a place to park, and you go around the block, feeling there's a place for you just around the corner. Well, faith is like that. You know what you're seeking is just around the corner, and so you don't stop looking."
At UCLA she studied anthropology and psychology, along with speech, her major, and she plunged into school activities. "I was a cheerleader, and I got involved in different clubs." The freshman year was exciting, but "the soph and junior years were not as stimulating. I got bored with many of the courses; some were by rote; and the challenge was really gone. I felt I was not really learning anything. I was bored."
But, all the time, she kept worrying and brooding about her spiritual values. She kept wondering if staying away from the church was the right thing. She kept wondering about other religions. She was going through a rebellious period.
"I was in the sorority during my soph and junior years; and it was good. But I was a rebel. I was always challenging the rules. I was always demanding to know why of every rule. I just could not rationalize the rules. I fought any rule that I thought was unjust. Sometimes I won; sometimes I didn't."
Yet, despite her disenchantment with old religious teachings, she did not change her religion. She didn't attend non-Catholic churches. "I did not go from one religion to another, as often happens with college students. But I was shaken up. I just wasn't positive of my beliefs any more. I found that you must have something to rely on. You may have confidence in yourself, without leaning on some outside force, yet you still need something. That's why I am still religious."
Now that she has gone back to her Catholicism, she finds it more personal than ever. It's her religion and she hopes that everyone "should be able to find religion for themselves."
It's one thing to be "born into a religion" through your parents, but it's another thing to reaffirm the religion when you are old enough to think for yourself. Now that Kathy has rediscovered her religion, it is all the more precious, more personal to her.
Kathy, a mere five-feet and 96 pounds, with brown hair and great big eyes, is no lightweight in purpose. She is bright, intense, aware, compassionate.
"Sometimes," she sighs, "sometimes I just can't get away from the thought that I'm destined to be a nun!"
She might be a small girl, physically, but she's big on courage. When something scares her, she talks herself out of it. She assures herself that it's silly to be afraid of anything, and that "I can have mastery over anything!"
It's the power of positive thinking, she says. "You just don't let anything get you down!"
Kathy, youngest of four children of architect Hayes G. Garver and homemaker Rosemary Schmoker, was born Dec. 13, 1948, in Long Beach, Calif., and began studying ballet, tap dancing, singing when a mere three. By the time she was eight, she was doing TV commercials. And when she went into high school, her mother took her out of show business so she could have a normal teen life.
She has always been a smart girl, and maybe some of her sister Beverly's brilliance rubbed off on her.
"Beverly entered UCLA at 15 ½, graduated at 19, got her master's in French, and is now working toward her doctorate.
She's been married 13 years, has three children, and teaches, but also wants to be an actress. Her husband is with the Association of Computing Machinery. They live in Larchmont, N.Y."
She has two brothers, Lance, 25, who wants to be an actor, and Bud, 29, who's a computer programmer. Because Kathy (real name, Kathleen) is so pretty and bright, she has never had trouble attracting boys. "I'm a very friendly person," she explains. "I like to meet people and I like to make friends. In fact, during my three years at UCLA I had become something of a Cupid."
"I knew a lot of boys that I liked and got to know around the college. I knew the football players from being a head cheerleader. When I pledged Phi Beta Phi sorority and moved into the sorority house, I got to know even more people.
"I know the girls at the sorority and their friends. And when I'd date a boy from a fraternity, I'd get to know his friends, too. Also, I was on the freshman executive board, and I campaigned for friends in student politics. So I was really very social, and knew a lot of people.
"So when a girl said, ‘Gee, I don't have a date for Saturday night,' I'd scout around for her. I'd size her up and try to find someone she'd like. It wasn't difficult. The truth is that I just love pairing off people!
"If the girl wanted a fun-date, I'd get her a fun-date. If the girl wasn't pretty, I'd never lie to the boy and say she was pretty; I'd say she'd be fun to be with."
If the girl was shy but a good listener, then Kathy would get her a boy who was an eager talker. If the girl was a bug on poetry, she'd get her a boy who shared her interest.
As for herself, Kathy has dated a lot but has never been engaged. Not that she hasn't been asked. "I've been asked but said no. I didn't want to marry, and still don't want to marry. It's too early for me. Besides, I don't believe in teen marriage. Let's face it, you don't really know anything in your teens–that is, about sex and marriage and love.
"A student is not ready for such an important move. For a college student, getting married may seem to be fun and they might feel mature for their age, but they don't have the experience. Theoretical knowledge about living with the opposite sex is just not enough.
"You can even be an intellectual and still fail in personal experience.
"My sister got married when at 19 when she had graduated from college. She admits now that she was not really ready for marriage.
"I think my mother married at 20."
Kathy usually dates several boys in any one period. She doesn't want to get tied down to one boy. She tells them the truth: that she enjoys their company, wants only fun dates, and doesn't want to get serious.
She's proud that she doesn't "play games" with the boys. She doesn't deliberately lose to a boy in games, just to pretend she's helpless. "If a boy is annoyed that I can beat him at tennis or swimming, then let him go out and improve his game!" she laughs.
It works both ways. "A boy has to be patient with me, too. Sometimes, when I'm dating a new boy and I'm in a light mood, he might think I don't have any brain. I may not feel like showing my brains the first time out.
"I've been with boys who thought they knew me. They had this image of me: flighty, lightheaded gadabout. And then later, when they knew me better, they said, ‘Gee, I didn't know you're like this!'"
To know a boy better, says Kathy, have patience!
"For instance, I've dated a football player and he talks like there's nothing he's interested in besides football. And then another time I see him in the classroom, studying hard, and I see him in a new light."
At home, Kathy has her own apartment on the second floor of an apartment building her parents own in Baldwin Hills, Calif. When boys call on her, she doesn't invite them to come up to her apartment; they must call for her in her parents' apartment. She uses her own apartment only for parties, not for single dates.
She has another rule on dating: "I don't date anybody over 25."
Also, she enjoys blind dating, something most girls avoid.
"Of course," she says, "I go only on blind dates set up by mutual friends who know me well and who know the kind of boy I like. As for fresh boys, I never had that kind of trouble. Maybe it's because I'm petite and they can't help feeling protective and gallant. Or maybe they get scared when they meet my older brothers, Lance and Bud.
"Both brothers are so protective toward me. They worry about me, but of course they don't try to stop me from dating. They look all my dates up and down, and they tell me, ‘Why are you going out with him?' and ‘I don't understand you' and ‘What could you possibly see in that fellow?'"
She doesn't date actors. Not that she turns her back on show business, but because most of the boys she knows are college boys she's met the past three years.
She once steady dated when she was about 16. "I had this ring, but I insisted on being able to date others. We had agreed on that. Then we stopped going steady, and we're still friends."
Despite her bent for scholarship, Kathy managed to do a lot of acting.
She's done dramatic roles in Fury, Father Knows Best, The Millionaire, My Favorite Husband, Our Miss Brooks and This is the Life. More recently, she appeared in Death Valley Days, Branded, Bing Crosby Show, Mr. Novak, Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare.
She made her movie debut in Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments and impressed him so much that he had extra scenes written in for her. She also acted in the movies Monkey on My Back, I'll Cry Tomorrow, Mother Superior and Kiss Me, Stupid.
At one time, she thought she'd study to become a lawyer; then she discovered she couldn't fit the law courses in because of her many acting commitments. Then she majored in speech, with minors in anthropology and psychology.
"I'm returning to UCLA," she says, "for night courses, and I'll get my B.A. After that, I'm not sure. I want to stay in acting; acting is the primary thing in my life. But I yearn for knowledge. I like to be informed about things; I enjoy learning."
Even if she married, some day, she'd want to be more than a homemaker. "I like to paint, and write, and sing, and do interior decorating. I'm starting singing lessons."
What would she do if she met a man who did not want her to stay in acting after they married? "I don't know," she says honestly. "But I have to do something besides being a homemaker. Some women have goals and the great need to be fulfilled. For me, staying home would not be enough. If I had to stay home, then I'd want to do some work at home, like interior decorating or writing poetry."
Kathy has many hobbies–painting, especially portraits; making mosaics, playing piano, dancing, skiiing on both snow and water, listening, talking.
And she is a happy person, basically, and being on Family Affair has been a joy to her. She gets along so well with the kids, Anissa Jones and Johnnie Whitaker. She adores Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot, who treats her with courtly kindness. When Cabot was ill in the hospital, she visited him and brought him a single rose in a bud vase–and he thought it was a charming gift.
Cabot calls her "that darling girl on my show."
And of course, Kathy shuns beatnik attitudes and habits that are so popular among teenagers. "Good manners bring self-respect and a healthful philosophy," she says.
And she's right.