Janet Landgard, Actress in ‘The Swimmer’ and ‘The Donna Reed Show,’ Dies at 75

She played a former babysitter for Burt Lancaster’s character in the Frank Perry classic and the girlfriend of Paul Petersen’s Jeff Stone on TV.

BY MIKE BARNES

NOVEMBER 11, 2023 11:00AM



Janet Landgard and Paul Petersen from 'The Donna Reed Show' COURTESY OF EVERETT COLLECTION

Janet Landgard, who accompanied Burt Lancaster on a portion of his bizarre tour of backyard swimming pools in the acclaimed 1968 drama The Swimmer, has died. She was 75. ... Landgard died this week after a very brief bout with brain cancer, actor Paul Petersen told The Hollywood Reporter. She recurred as his love interest on the final three seasons of the ABC family comedy The Donna Reed Show.

On Facebook, Petersen called her “the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence. We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

In Columbia Pictures’ The Swimmer — directed by Frank Perry and adapted by his then-wife, Eleanor Perry, from a John Cheever short story in The New Yorker — Landgard was memorable as Julie Ann Hooper, who used to babysit Ned Merrill’s (Lancaster) kids but is now grown up.

{snip}



Janet Landgard (center) with Burt Lancaster and Lisa Daniels in 1968’s The Swimmer

Born on Dec. 2, 1947, Landgard was raised in Pasadena and worked for the William Adrian Modeling Agency. While still at Pasadena High, she made her onscreen debut in 1963 on The Donna Reed Show, playing a girl named Sabrina on a fifth-season episode. She also appeared on ABC’s My Three Sons that year.

{snip}