Kyle Richards is best known for her long-running role on the reality show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But decades before that, she was a child actress who once appeared in a rare Christmas TV special. One of Richard's first credited acting roles was in a hard-to-find Father Knows Best reunion movie that aired nearly 20 years after the original series ended.
At age eight, Richards appeared in Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas. The long-awaited made-for-TV holiday movie about the Anderson family from the beloved 1950s series aired on December 18, 1977, on NBC. Richards played Ellen, the granddaughter of Jim and Margaret Anderson (Robert Young, Jane Wyatt) and daughter of Betty (Elinor Donahue). The storyline followed empty nesters Jim and Margaret as they prepared to sell their family home. Original series stars Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin (Bud and Kathy Anderson) also returned for the reunion movie.
Nearly 50 years later, Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas is extremely hard to find on TV or streaming services. In 2024, it was part of a Christmas Eve marathon on FETV, but it was not available for streaming anywhere else, per Remind magazine
A blurb on Prime Video states that the title is currently unavailable due to “expired rights.”
Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas was a bit of a rush job when it was filmed in the late 1970s. The movie was quickly made following the great success of a May 1977 Father Knows Best reunion, in which Richards also played Ellen. The young actress also appeared in more scenes than some of the original stars—including her TV mom.
In an interview with First for Women, Donahue, who played Richards’ character’s mother in the films, explained why she was missing from so many scenes in the Christmas movie. “The second reunion show I was barely in, because NBC wanted me for a series called Mulligan’s Stew," she said. "They wouldn’t release me to shoot Father Knows Best, even though it was on the same network. So they had to keep shooting around me and shooting around me and cutting the part down.”
Richards, now 56, has not directly talked about her role in the Father Knows Best Christmas movie. But in a past interview posted by Houston Style magazine, the RHOBH star recalled working with “incredible people” as a child actress. “I’ve been doing television since before I could even read,” Richards said. “A lot of the things I did were in a very family-friendly environment.”
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