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Kathy Garver
Garver at WonderCon 2009
Born	Kathleen Marie Allison Garver December 13, 1945 (1945-12-13) (age 64) Long Beach, California, United States
Occupation	Actress

Kathleen Marie Allison "Kathy" Garver (born December 13, 1945) is an American film, television, voice-over and character actress of stage, most widely known for playing Brian Keith's teenaged niece, Catherine "Cissy" Davis, on the popular 1960s sitcom, Family Affair. Before that, she played a slave in The Ten Commandments.

Early life

Garver was born in Long Beach, California, and is the daughter of Rosemary and Hayes Gilbert Garver.^[1] When she was 9, she tried her hand at acting and was cast in I'll Cry Tomorrow, but her most famous movie role was that of one of the young slaves in The Ten Commandments, and she has been acting ever since.

Between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, the young actress worked with such actors as Marvin Miller, Chuck Connors, Peter Graves, Scott Forbes, Dan O'Herlihy, Kurt Russell, Fess Parker, Vince Edwards, Richard Chamberlain, Patty Duke, Anne Lockhart, and James Franciscus. She also worked with another Hollywood legend, Brian Keith, who would star with Garver in Family Affair.

She was later raised in Oakland's/San Francisco's suburb of San Leandro, where she entered Pacific Arts High School in 1960, and stayed there until graduation in 1964. Around the time, she entered UCLA, majoring in speech and drama, until her graduation in 1968, while acting.

Career

While studying, Garver auditioned and won the role of Uncle Bill's teenaged niece, Catherine "Cissy" Davis, the eldest sibling on the original TV series Family Affair, for CBS in 1966. Garver, who'd been a fan of Keith's since she was 10 years old and had guest-starred on Crusader, a television series he had starred in. That one guest-role paid off and Keith himself was impressed to see her grow up and become the amazing young lady that she was. She also enjoyed the wonderful on- and off-screen chemistry with Keith. She would continue playing that role until its cancellation in 1971.

She continue to keep in touch or visit Keith until his suicide on June 24, 1997, where she attended the funeral, alongside, Johnny Whitaker, the other surviving cast member of the series. Garver and Whitaker were reunited when they both appeared in the Christmas episode of the later revival of Family Affair. She guest starred on numerous television series, including ABC's short-lived The Bing Crosby Show in the 1964-1965 season. Garver also provided the voice of Firestar on the Saturday morning cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. She also voiced Storm, as well as other female guest characters. In the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon series, she played the voice of Miss America. Incidentally, Garver's Family Affair co-star, Brian Keith, provided the voice of Uncle Ben Parker on the aforementioned Spider-Man series from the 1990s.

Garver was a member of Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women at UCLA. She lives in Hillsborough, California, with her husband David and son Reid. On June 26, 2008, both she & Whitaker attended the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony when Brian Keith was awarded a star posthumously; Garver gave a speech on his behalf.

References

External links

• Garver's official website
• Kathy Garver at the Internet Movie Database
• A podcast of the 2009 NATF performance starring Kathy Garver. Garver was the host for the National Audio Theatre Festival that year.

Further reading

• Garver, Kathy and Mark, Geoffrey, The Family Affair Cookbook, published by BearManor Media 2009. ISBN 1-59393-458-0.