Trivia

Has a son, Matthew Chapin.

Mother of Summer-Healy Chapin.

Sister of Billy Chapin and Michael Chapin.

A heroin dealer held her "in bondage" as a prostitute. Chapin tried to commit suicide by cutting off her left hand with a meat cleaver. The scars remain.

She was a licensed and ordained evangelist and advocate for Israel.

In 1967, she was arrested in Los Angeles for trying to cash a bogus check. Over the next three years, she was either in prison or a mental institution.

In 1989, she wrote an autobiography, Father Does Know Best: The Lauren Chapin Story.

Lauren Chapin was an American actress who played the role of the youngest child "Kathy Anderson" (nicknamed "Kitten") on the television show Father Knows Best between 1954 and 1960. She appeared in 196 episodes of the 203 in the series.

She owned two beauty pageant enterprises and helped manage and start the career of Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Chapin was so type-cast when "Father Knows Best" ended its run in 1962 that Chapin found no work in Hollywood. Her stardom had totally vanished. About the same time, Chapin started using marijuana and alcohol. Her addictions would later turn to heroin.

She worked as a fund-raiser for "Hope and Help," an AIDS foundation.

She nearly died from viral encephalitis and hepatitis.

In the early 1980s, Chapin taught natural childbirth and worked for a brokerage firm.

Chapin was awarded five Junior Emmys for Best Child Actress.

In the '80s, she published the memoir "Father Does Know Best" in which she described being sexually molested by her father and a family friend all the while she was a household name on television. She wrote about her frustrated-actor mom playing favorites among her children and about her later substance-abuse issues and embrace of religion.