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.

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.

The two reconnect as Ned is “swimming his way home” using neighborhood pools in suburban Connecticut, but when she admits she once had a crush on him, and he gets a bit too intimate, she runs away, leaving him to continue his bizarre trip alone.

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.

She returned to play Jeff’s girlfriend Karen on 11 installments of The Donna Reed Show through 1965, and the pair would grace the cover of Teen Screen magazine.

Landgard was showcased as a rising young talent alongside Raquel Welch, Mary Ann Mobley, Barbara Parkins and others on the TV special The Hollywood Deb Stars of 1965, then served as a hostess on Dream Girl of ’67, executive produced by Chuck Barris.

After The Swimmer, Landgard appeared in Land Raiders (1969), starring Telly Savalas, George Maharis and Arlene Dahl; in the 1971 ABC telefilm The Deadly Dream, starring Lloyd Bridges and Janet Leigh; and in Moonchild (1972), starring Victor Buono, before she left acting.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/janet-landgard-dead-swimmer-donna-reed-show-1235644872/

REFERENCIHG: "A Friend" wondering if "The Swimmer" was the first all-on-location shoot of a USA film:
-----------------------------
I'd bet against "The Swimmer" being the first on-location American shoot, AF; McQueen's "The Blob" seems to be a counter-example, I would think, even though they never iIDed it as suburban Pittsburgh. (Though that final, morphing-into-question-mark scene over Antarctic I suppose would disqualify it.)

Oh, and speaking of King of Cool Steve McQueen: one of his earliest efforts was titled something to the effect of "The Great St. Loius Bank Robbery" shortly after he went blobbing in Pittsburgh; it not only was shot (in monochrome, alas) on the south side of St. Louis, but the producers managed to get permission to use the very bank that the actual late-40s or early-50s event the film was based on! (Not unlike "In Cold Blood" being shot in the murdered Clutter family's actual home.)

Meanwhile, I'm glad they used actual Westport, Connecticut estates for "The Swimmer". But even if they shot it all in Esther Williams's pool on the MGM backlot in Culver City, it STILL would have been a profoundly dumb plot in a totally strange, inexplicable film. (Having a poolside cameo by the author of the source New Yorker short story didn't help this witless flick a whit. Actually, I was hoping a seriously-territorial Westport neighbor would have gone after Ned the Swimmer with a shotgun as soon as he emerged from his latest dip--now THAT'S entertainment.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

Oh, if it seems like my savage dismissal of the often-but-inexplicably-lauded "The Swimmer" betrays a serious bias against Burt Lancaster, I plead guilty.

I think he typically overdid it on screen ("Elmer Gentry", "Judgment at Nuremburg" and "Come Back Little Sheba" come to mind immediately). But what I REALLY hold against him is not turning down the "Birdman of Alcatraz" part, however much his pal director pal John Frankenheimer wanted him for it; the well-over 6-foot Lancaster was (like Peter O"Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia") portraying a historical figure (short-statured Bob Stroud*) who was at least six inches shorter than the actor.

STYBLE/Florida
============* Who I like to remind y'all died probably imagining JFK would end up a two-term POTUS...as he died laid (and locked) up within the sprawling Federal prison-hospital complex on the west side of Springfield, Missouri on Thursday, November 21, 1963.

Still, to toss a bone to Lancaster partisans, of which I realize there are many:

Lancaster WAS simply terrific in his near-career cap, "Atlantic City", an interesting and expertly-crafted film in several respects.

STYBLE/Florida

In article <a7c29fa9-c6da-490d-9f8f-bdaf9d155579n@googlegroups.com>,
<"radioacti...@gmail.com"> wrote:

> Oh, if it seems like my savage dismissal of the often-but-inexplicably-lauded
> "The Swimmer" betrays a serious bias against Burt Lancaster, I plead guilty.
>
> I think he typically overdid it on screen ("Elmer Gentry", "Judgment at
> Nuremburg" and "Come Back Little Sheba" come to mind immediately). But what
> I REALLY hold against him is not turning down the "Birdman of Alcatraz" part,
> however much his pal director pal John Frankenheimer wanted him for it; the
> well-over 6-foot Lancaster was (like Peter O"Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia")
> portraying a historical figure (short-statured Bob Stroud*) who was at least
> six inches shorter than the actor.

That would seem a poor reason to turn down Lancaster for the role, as
Stroud's height wasn't critical to the character or the film.
Lancaster made a seedy, despicable POS come off as sympathetic and, in
a way, admirable. Nice job.