Doris Packer

Doris Packer (May 30, 1904 – March 31, 1979) was an American actress born in Menominee, Michigan, whose career spanned stage, film, and television across several decades. Her family relocated to southern California when she was young, and she developed an interest in acting during her high school years. After completing her studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, she moved to New York City to train under drama and dance teacher Evelyn Thomas.

Packer's Broadway career ran from 1932 to 1935 and included appearances in three productions: Back Fire, Strip Girl, and Something More Important. Following her stage work, she pursued opportunities in television, where she became a recognizable presence in American sitcoms and dramatic series throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Screen roles frequently cast her as aristocratic or intellectually precise characters, a quality that defined much of her television work.

Among her most recognized television roles was Mrs. Cornelia Rayburn, the elementary school principal of Theodore Cleaver on the CBS series Leave It to Beaver. On The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, also on CBS, she portrayed Clarice Armitage, mother of the character Milton Armitage, before that character was replaced by Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., whose mother Packer also subsequently played. She held a recurring role as Clara Mason on the 1960–61 sitcom Happy and appeared as Mrs. McGillicuddy in the Pete and Gladys episode "Gladys' Political Campaign" in 1961.

Packer's guest appearances extended across numerous prominent series of the era. She played wealthy society matrons on both The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and I Love Lucy, and appeared as Mrs. Wiley on The Andy Griffith Show. In 1962, she guest-starred on Perry Mason as Mrs. Campion in "The Case of the Polka Dot Pony" and portrayed Grandmother Nedra in the Twilight Zone episode "I Sing the Body Electric." The following year, she played the wealthy Mrs. Huntingdon in the Dick Van Dyke Show episode "I'm No Henry Walden!" on CBS. She appeared in three episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies as Mrs. Fenwick and, in 1964, portrayed a hotel guest in the Petticoat Junction episode "Kate and the Dowager." In 1965, she played retiring teacher Miss Hortense Pringle in the My Favorite Martian episode "We Love You, Miss Pringle." She also appeared in an episode of Colgate Theatre in 1958.

During World War II, Packer enlisted in the U.S. Army Women's Army Corps in 1943, entering as a Private and attaining the rank of Technical Sergeant before her discharge. Her discharge records are believed to have been among those destroyed in the 1973 fire at the Military Personnel Records Center. Her grave marker at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where she is interred, acknowledges her military service.

Packer was married to stage director Rowland G. Edwards on September 29, 1928. The marriage lasted 25 years until Edwards died on August 10, 1953. The couple had no children. Packer died on March 31, 1979, at the age of 74, in Glendale, California, of natural causes.