Linda Henning’s earliest memory of living in Toluca Lake is an unusual one: seeing the front yard of her family’s Navajo Street home covered in snow. That 1949 blizzard was a freak event, but her subsequent recollections paint the idyllic portrait you might expect from a typical midcentury San Fernando Valley childhood: shopping on Riverside Drive, hanging out with friends at Bob’s Big Boy on Friday nights, dining with her family at the Tick Tock, eating dinner at Patys after play rehearsal, being welcomed inside neighbors’ homes while trick-or-treating with a friend on Halloween (“the two of us, by ourselves — nobody thought anything of it!” she marvels).
Yet in other ways Henning’s life was a remarkable one, though not totally unexpected in a community that’s been a haven for members of the entertainment industry since its founding. Her father, Paul Henning, was a distinguished screenwriter and television producer most famous for developing The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Linda herself began working as a dancer, singer and actor while still a teenager, co-starred on Petticoat Junction for its entire seven-year run and went on to have a long TV and stage career. Here, the longtime local resident shares her reminiscences of showbiz and Toluca Lake history, her talented family and how growing up in the neighborhood shaped her personal and professional life.
Down Home
Linda Kaye Henning was born on September 16 — also her father’s birthday — in 1944, the second child of Paul and Ruth Henning (she was preceded by sister Carol, and brother Tony arrived two years later). Her parents were Missouri natives who’d met while working for a Kansas City radio station and moved to L.A. shortly after their marriage in 1939 so Paul could pursue a Hollywood career. In 1942 he landed a job writing for George Burns and Gracie Allen on their hit radio show, where he would work for the next 10 years.
The Hennings moved from Sherman Oaks to Toluca Lake in 1948, purchasing a spacious home with a pool on a 1.25-acre lot near the lake to accommodate their growing family. “Oh, it was a beautiful house,” Linda remembers. “You walked in the front door and the living room was two stories high with beams, and it was gorgeous…. I really liked that house. That was one of the reasons I lived in it so long.” She would stay there for the next 20 years, until her marriage in 1968.
Linda recalls the family-friendly area as an ideal place to grow up. “My home was a real home, in a real neighborhood,” she says. “I’d walk up to Riverside, not that far away, and there were shops there where people knew you.” Although the Hennings’ land didn’t directly adjoin the water, it was part of the lake property and the family had a key to access the gated area. Linda was enchanted by the natural setting and its wildlife, including fish, ducks and, one memorable year, hundreds of tiny frogs. “It was heaven for me,” she enthuses. “It was an absolutely beautiful place.” That love for animals would remain a theme throughout her life and career. Her first TV role was on Mister Ed, where she recalls the famous equine actor being “beautiful, and such a well-behaved horse … he would paw when he had to go to the john, and they’d take him outside.” On Petticoat Junction, it was she who spent the most time with the stray pup that joined the Bradley family after following her character home from school one day. Known on screen only as “Dog,” in real life he was played by Higgins, a mixed breed adopted from the Burbank Animal Shelter in 1960 by trainer Frank Inn, who called him the smartest dog he’d ever worked with. (In 1974, Higgins would reunite with Petticoat actor Edgar Buchanan for the hit family movie Benji, the last film either would make.) She also remembers fondly how Inn would let her hold the young pigs that played Green Acres’ Arnold Ziffel on her lap behind the scenes because “he knew what a nut I was about animals.” She even volunteered for more than 30 years as a docent at the L.A. Zoo.
Of course, living in Toluca Lake also offered an early exposure to the entertainment industry. Her family’s lifestyle was down-to-earth, which Linda credits to Ruth and Paul’s sensible Midwestern background and caring, intelligent nature: “I was a very fortunate person; all of us [siblings] were, because we had wonderful parents who as far as I’m concerned had their heads in the right place and cared about people.” But the community’s status as a celebrity enclave meant that even her ordinary memories were star-studded, like learning to swim in Burns and Allen’s pool. Her school friends at Campbell Hall in Studio City included Stephen Andrews, whose father was star Dana Andrews, and her brother played with neighbor John Ritter, the son of cowboy singer Tex Ritter who grew up to be an actor himself. After Linda started ballet lessons at around age 6, one of her dance classmates was Kristin Harmon, who became an actor and married Ricky Nelson, and whose siblings Mark and Kelly also became well-known actors.
On Track to Fame
Growing up in this atmosphere, it seemed natural for the Henning children to dabble in showbiz. Carol sold her first TV comedy bit at age 10 and went on to pen a pair of scripts for The Addams Family before pursuing a writing career outside the industry, and Tony acted in a couple of episodes of The Bob Cummings Show (later known as Love That Bob), which Paul created in 1955 and wrote and produced through its five-season run. But it was Linda who seemed a born performer. Her ballet classes led to opportunities to perform at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank and join the local theater scene, including in the Toluca Lake Little Theatre troupe and at the North Hollywood Playhouse on Magnolia and Cahuenga. Although dance was her primary passion, she loved musical comedy and broadened her skills into singing and acting to pursue more roles.
In 1962, Linda’s performance in Gidget at the North Hollywood Playhouse garnered her an audition for the film Bye Bye Birdie, in which she was cast as a dancer with a small speaking part that was cut from the final version but earned her a SAG card (as well the chance to spot her idol, Fred Astaire, while filming on the Universal lot). Single-episode roles on TV shows like The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis followed.
That same year, Paul had also entered a new phase of his career. Inspired by his early experiences of camping in the Ozarks, he created The Beverly Hillbillies, which became the top-rated CBS show for its first two seasons and remained among the top 20 most-watched programs for most of its nine-season run, earning seven Emmy nominations. Paul wrote or co-wrote more than 200 of its 274 episodes, as well as the popular theme song. The following year he repeated that success with another rural-themed comedy — Petticoat Junction, based on Ruth’s memories of her grandparents, who ran a hotel near a railroad line in Eldon, Missouri. He built the show around veteran actor Bea Benaderet, whom he had worked with on The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show. When it came time to cast her character’s three daughters, Benaderet suggested Linda to be Betty Jo Bradley, pointing out that she was a natural fit for the role of a redheaded tomboy and animal lover.
Linda says her mother, who also loved dancing and performing, was “ecstatic” about her daughter’s burgeoning career. Paul was supportive but cautious, and he stayed out of Linda’s casting process, concerned it would appear he was wielding undue clout or her successes were not her own. “Daddy was very worried about people yelling nepotism,” she explains. “So he said, ‘Use your middle name, Kaye, don’t use your last name, and then they’ll think you’re Danny Kaye’s daughter because you’ve got red hair.’” After she was cast (indeed billed as Linda Kaye), father and daughter maintained firm boundaries between their working and family roles, with Paul rarely visiting the set and Linda refusing to exert any influence with him when it came to the direction of the show. “At first people were wary of me [because] they knew who I was, and all I could do was just work as hard as I could and go along with everybody else,” she says.
Petticoat Junction was another hit for both Paul and Linda. Airing just as Beatlemania hit the U.S., an episode in the show’s first season saw the Bradley sisters forming a band called the Ladybugs along with a friend (played by guest star Sheila James Kuehl, who later became an L.A. County supervisor and state legislator). The actors were invited to sing their cover of “I Saw Her Standing There” on The Ed Sullivan Show just six weeks after the Fab Four’s iconic appearance. Linda and her later pair of TV sisters, Lori Saunders and Meredith MacRae, were also so popular they performed on The Tonight Show, on telethons and in nightclubs, and even recorded some songs together. Petticoat plotlines increasingly focused on the Bradley sisters, of whom only Linda’s character was played by the same actor for the program’s entire 222-episode run.
In addition to developing Linda’s career, the show brought changes in her personal life. Actor Mike Minor, who played her TV husband, became her offscreen spouse in 1968. The couple held their wedding reception at Lakeside Golf Club and moved to their own home in Sherman Oaks.
Local Legends
The following year, with their children now grown, Paul and Ruth decided to downsize by subdividing their property on Navajo into thirds, selling two portions (including their original home) and building Ruth’s dream house on the remaining one. They hired renowned L.A. architect Robert Byrd to make her vision a reality, and the Hennings moved into their custom Tudor/French provincial masterpiece in 1971. It would be the couple’s home for the rest of their lives, where the family gathered over the next three decades to celebrate holidays. Linda recalls coming over on Halloween to help hand out candy to the throngs of curious visitors at the one-of-a-kind house.
Linda remained nearby, moving to the Burbank side of Toluca Lake following her divorce from Minor in 1973, then eventually to the hills of Studio City, where she still resides today. She continued to have a busy career after Petticoat ended in 1970, making dozens of TV appearances on dramas, comedies, game shows and talk shows as well as performing in stage plays and musicals across the country, including as part of the California Artists Radio Theatre repertory troupe at the Beverly Garland Theatre at The Garland in North Hollywood. “I’d come home from some trip doing some role or other, and in my mailbox would be a script for something else and then I’d get that,” she recalls of the flurry of work. “It was wonderful.” As Petticoat and her father’s other shows stayed eternally popular in syndication, she also made regular appearances at cast reunions and met fans at autograph shows.
Additionally, Linda stayed actively involved in local life, not only through her work at the L.A. Zoo but also by driving patients to and from treatment as a volunteer with the San Fernando Valley Unit of the American Cancer Society — work that was inspired by not only her own bout with cancer, but that of her mentor and onscreen mother, Bea Benaderet, who died of the disease in 1968. She also spent time helping out in the beloved bygone boutique Trinkets and Treasures, which began in Toluca Lake before eventually moving to Studio City.
Looking back, Linda Henning has nothing but gratitude for her family, career and community. “I have to say that I am such a fortunate person, because I had the best parents in the world. They were wonderful, and Daddy had this fantastic sense of humor. Almost no matter what was going on, he could come up with a one-liner” — from suggesting “I’ve Got Zoo Under My Skin” as the title of a parodic ballad Linda performed at her docent graduation to telling a restaurant waiter who offered to toss a salad at their table, “Oh no, you can just come and set it down.” He was so shy and modest that he rarely mentioned his career successes at home — whether it was working with Marlon Brando, being nominated for an Academy Award (for the movie Lover Come Back) or receiving a letter from President Harry Truman — so she’s proud to see him fondly remembered in the industry and keep sharing his story. She also continues to feel a strong connection to Toluca Lake, returning now and then to stroll the familiar streets or enjoy a meal (although much has changed, “the fact that Patys is still there really helps me a lot”). She concludes, “I cannot ask for a nicer childhood, growing up, living where we did. It was magical.”
