Biography
When bandleader Ina Ray Hutton launched her TV series in 1956, much was made of the fact that the entire on-camera cast was female -- right down to the announcer, a lovely newcomer named Diane Brewster. Signed to a Warner Bros. contract shortly after the inauguration of the Hutton show, Brewster appeared in several decorative film roles, the best of which was Kate Lawrence in
The Young Philadelphians (1959). She also showed up sporadically as bewitched confidence trickster Samantha Crawford on the Warner Bros. TV series
Maverick (1957-1962), and later starred as Wilhelmina "Steamboat Willie" Vanderveer in the weekly Warners actioner
The Islanders (1960). Devotees of
Leave It to Beaver will remember Brewster as Beaver's teacher Miss Canfield during the series' inaugural 1957-1958 season (she'd played an entirely different role in the 1956
Beaver pilot episode, "
It's a Small World"). Thirty-five years later, the still-gorgeous Diane Brewster reprised her Miss Canfield characterization in the 1983 TV-movie
Still the Beaver. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide