Diane Brewster was an American television actress most noted for
playing three distinctively different roles in television series of the 1950s
and 1960s: confidence trickster Samantha Crawford in the western Maverick; pretty
young second-grade teacher Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver; and doomed wife
Helen Kimble in The Fugitive. Background
Diane Brewster was a direct descendant of Pilgrim Elder William Brewster,
Governor of Plymouth Colony William Bradford, and 18th-century American poet
and writer Martha Wadsworth Brewster. She and her husband, Dr. Jabe Walker, an
oral surgeon, had a son, Dean C. Walker and a daughter, Lynn D. Walker. Both
children were born in Los Angeles, California. Jabe Z. Walker died in
February 2013. Career
On Maverick, Brewster's character is a gorgeous gambling con artist who often
fakes a southern accent but is ultimately likable. Brewster first
played the character in a 1956 episode of Cheyenne entitled "Dark Decision"
before appearing opposite James Garner in the third episode of Maverick,
"According to Hoyle". Her other Maverick appearances include "The Savage Hills"
with Jack Kelly, "The Seventh Hand" with Garner, and the famous "Shady Deal at
Sunny Acres" with both Kelly and Garner. Brewster played Miss Canfield on Leave
It to Beaver for the first season on CBS in 1957-1958 and for the 1980s
television revivals. Brewster appeared in the show's pilot, "It's a Small
World," as Miss Simms, a secretary with a dairy company, and in four regular
season episodes as Miss Canfield. In Episode 1 she appears in the credits as
"Diana Brewster", a mistake which was corrected in her next appearance in
Episode 8. Brewster was replaced by Sue Randall as "Miss Landers" on the second
season of Leave It to Beaver. In 1957, she co-starred with George
Montgomery in the western film Black Patch, playing his former and future
love interest. On January 31, 1959, Brewster played a similar role to that
of Samantha Crawford in ABC's Maverick, as Lisa Caldwell in the episode "Runaway
Train" of NBC's Cimarron City western television series; re-teaming with
George Montgomery, as Mayor Matt Rockford, he falls in love with Lisa
while they are traveling on a train carrying a group of prisoners. A man
from Lisa's past, played by Lyle Talbot, is also aboard and complicates
Rockford's pursuit of Lisa. It is revealed that Lisa is a professional
gambler from St. Louis, Missouri, who had shot to death a man who had been
threatening her. She then fled by train with plans to reach Denver.
Also in 1959, Brewster made an appearance in The Young Philadelphians
playing the mother of Paul Newman's character. She made almost fifty
appearances in various other television and film roles, including episodes of
Crusader, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Harbor Command. In 1959, she played the
wife of Ronald Reagan's character in an installment of the General Electric
Theatre anthology series, "Nobody's Child", and portrayed Marian Dell in the
episode "Law of the Badlands" of the syndicated western series Frontier
Doctor starring Rex Allen. In 1960, Brewster had a starring role as
Wilhelmina "Steamboat Willy" Vanderveer in The Islanders, an hour-long adventure
series set in the South Pacific, with William Reynolds and James Philbrook.
That same year, she also portrayed the titular role in "The Lita Foladaire
Story," an episode of Wagon Train with Ward Bond and silent film star Evelyn
Brent, in which Brewster's character had been killed before the start of the
show, with her sections of the story posthumously depicted in flashbacks.
She subsequently guest starred on Empire in 1962; on The Dakotas in 1963; on the
1963 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Potted Planter", and in the premiere
episode of Kentucky Jones. Brewster appeared several times in flashbacks,
uncredited, as the murdered wife, Helen Kimble, in The Fugitive. She appeared in
a two episodes of Death Valley Days, in a 1966 episode of Family Affair, and in
an installment of Ironside before retiring. She reappeared in four
episodes of The New Leave It to Beaver. Diane Brewster died from heart failure
in 1991, aged 60. References
External links Diane Brewster at the Internet Movie
Database Diane Brewster at Find a Grave