Shelley Fabares Waited 22 Months for a Liver and Got 26 More Years

Caption: Ken Osmond with actress Shelley Fabares. Credit: via Wikimedia Commons.

August 22

Shelley Fabares died on August 22 in Los Angeles, surrounded by her family, who confirmed the death to the Associated Press. She was 82. A cause has not been disclosed.

The Diagnosis That Should Have Ended It in 1999

Fabares went to an emergency room in early 1999 with an esophageal bleed. The workup found progressive liver failure caused by autoimmune hepatitis. She was placed on the transplant list and waited 22 months. The liver came in October 2000.

She lived another 26 years after that. Her husband, the MASH actor Mike Farrell, was married to her for more than forty years, and her family said in confirming her death that he was with her “every step of the way.”

The 22-month wait is the detail worth sitting with. It is not an unusual figure for a liver in 1999, and it describes almost two years of a working actor’s life spent waiting on a phone call that arrives or does not.

Three Careers, All of Them Front-Rank

Fabares played Mary Stone on The Donna Reed Show from 1958 to 1966, which made her a household face before she turned twenty. In 1962 she recorded “Johnny Angel,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold more than a million copies. She then made three films with Elvis Presley, Girl Happy, Spinout and Clambake.

Two decades later she came back on television as Christine Armstrong on Coach, running from 1989 to 1997, and earned two Emmy nominations for it. Most performers get one of those runs. She had three, separated by long enough that different generations of audience each think of a different Shelley Fabares.

The Music She Did Not Chase

She never pursued the recording career that “Johnny Angel” opened. The record was a genuine No. 1, and she treated it as something that had happened rather than as a direction. That decision is unusual enough to be worth noting, because the standard path after a million-selling single is to make ten more.

What She Was to the People Who Knew Her

She was the niece of the actress Nanette Fabray. Her family’s statement did not describe a career. It described a marriage and a household, and it named the person who was with her at the end, which is the part they chose to put on the record.

References: Shelley Fabares, ‘Johnny Angel’ singer and actor on ‘The Donna Reed Show’ and ‘Coach,’ dies at 82 | Shelley Fabares, ‘Johnny Angel’ singer and actor in ‘The Donna Reed Show’ and ‘Coach,’ dies at 82 | Shelley Fabares Dead: Star of ‘Coach’ and ‘The Donna Reed Show’ Was 82