Lauren Chapin, the child actress best known for playing the youngest daughter on the beloved 1950s American sitcom Father Knows Best, died at the age of 80. 

She passed away on Tuesday, 24th February 2026, in a hospital in Miami, Florida, from cancer. Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Summer Chapin.bout 

Know more about Lauren Chapin

To millions of television viewers, Chapin was Kathy Anderson, a giggly, ribbon-haired tomboy affectionately nicknamed “Kitten” by her on-screen father, Jim Anderson, played by Robert Young. 

It was a role she first stepped into at just nine years old, after auditioning in the summer of 1954 and winning the part over hundreds of other girls, partly, she later recalled, because of her resemblance to one of Young’s real-life daughters. 

She went on to appear in 196 of the show’s 203 episodes across its six-year run, earning five Junior Emmy Awards for Best Child Actress along the way. 

The show itself became a cultural touchstone of its era, climbing steadily into the Nielsen top ten and switching networks twice, from CBS to NBC, and back to CBS again, as its popularity grew.

But behind the wholesome family scenes and the cheerful grade-school antics of little Kitten, Chapin’s real life was a world away from the Anderson household. 

As she laid bare in her 1989 autobiography, Father Does Know Best: The Lauren Chapin Story, she was raised by an abusive father and an alcoholic mother who had pushed all three of her children into acting to fulfil her own unfulfilled ambitions. 

Lauren was just four years old, she wrote, when the abuse began.

When Father Knows Best ended in 1960, Chapin was fourteen. She later described feeling like a has-been before she’d even reached adulthood.

The years that followed were, by her own account, defined by heroin addiction, work as a call girl, a prison sentence for check forgery, and multiple stints in psychiatric facilities. 

She made several suicide attempts by the time she was eighteen, had been married and divorced, and suffered eight miscarriages. 

In 1964, she sued her mother over her television earnings, alleging she had been made to sign away all rerun benefits, money she said she never saw.

Her path out of that darkness, she said, came through faith. 

Chapin became a born-again Christian and was later licensed and ordained as an evangelical minister. She reportedly raised millions of dollars to support abused children and spent years giving religious testimonials about her experiences. 

“I’m not proud of my past, but in a strange way, I’m thankful for it,” she once said. “If Christ can love a person like I was, he can love anyone. To me, that’s the real message of my past.”

In the years that followed, she built a quietly different life. 

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

She later owned two beauty pageant enterprises and was also credited with helping to launch the early career of actress Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Chapin was born Lauren Ann Chapin on 23rd May 1945, in Los Angeles. Her two older brothers, Billy and Michael Chapin, were also child actors.

She is survived by her daughter, Summer.

For a generation that grew up with Father Knows Best, Chapin was the little girl who cried melodramatically, burst into rooms uninvited, and looked up at her television father with complete trust. 

The distance between that image and the life she actually lived makes her story all the more remarkable, and her survival all the more so.

Neve Campbell is heading back to face Ghostface in Scream 7, and she’s being paid handsomely for it.

According to Variety, the 52-year-old actress secured a deal worth nearly $7 million to reprise her role as Sidney Prescott in the upcoming seventh instalment, which hits cinemas on 27th February 2026.

That figure is a significant one, not least because it’s $5 million more than her longtime co-star Courteney Cox is receiving for the same film.

Cox, 61, who has played sharp-tongued journalist Gale Weathers in every Scream film since the 1996 original, was awarded $2 million for her return, a notable gap that underlines just how central Sidney Prescott is to the franchise’s identity and, frankly, its box office appeal.

Campbell had sat out Scream VI in 2023 following a reported salary dispute, but her return to the seventh film has been one of the more anticipated storylines in horror this year.

Reworking the script to bring Campbell’s Sidney back into the fold reportedly cost around $500,000. The film’s overall budget sits at $45 million, up from the $35 million spent on the sixth film.

The response from fans has been warm. 

“I’m so excited to see Sidney as the focus again,” one follower wrote on a post shared by Campbell herself. “You deserve all of the great things! February 27th can’t get here fast enough.”

Scream 7 opens in cinemas on Friday, 27th February.

Rafael Olarra, the Argentine creative director and Luke Evans ex boyfriend and The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal are at the centre of swirling romance rumours these days. 

The buzz started earlier this month when Pascal, 50, and Olarra, 47, were photographed multiple times together in New York City’s Lower East Side. 

On 6th February, the pair were spotted linking arms on a walk before sitting down for a meal together. 

Days later, they were seen side by side at a screening of Wuthering Heights, starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, chatting closely throughout. 

Then, on 24th February, photos obtained by TMZ showed the two strolling through Beverly Hills in athletic wear, arms wrapped around each other’s waists. 

In one snap, Pascal appears to lean in and rest his chin, and mouth, on Olarra’s shoulder. 

In another, Olarra reaches his arm back around Pascal in return. Both men were smiling and laughing in the Los Angeles sunshine.

Neither Pascal nor Olarra has commented on the nature of their relationship, but fans have been doing plenty of talking. 

“He must really be in love, cuz he’s never publicly walked around with someone like this knowingly getting papped,” one supporter wrote online.

Another added, “I love that he hasn’t made any big personal statements. It feels like he’s just out there living his life without the fanfare.”

Who is Rafael Olarra?

So who is Rafael Olarra? Born in Gualeguaychú, Argentina, he studied at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and later reportedly spent time studying in Madrid. 

He has built a quietly impressive career in the world of art direction, luxury hospitality, and large-scale creative projects. 

Since August 2015, he has served as creative director of the Faena Group, a high-end international hospitality brand founded by Argentinian hotelier Alan Faena, known for its immersive blend of art, culture, and luxury. 

On his own website, Olarra describes his role as being “in charge of materialising Alan Faena’s vision and work to improve the Faena district, which was created in collaboration with the incredible minds of Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martins, Ximena Caminos, Juan Gatti, Rem Koolhaas, Foster, Oma, Francis Mallman, Paul Qui, and many more.”

Beyond Faena, he also takes on freelance art direction work spanning fashion campaigns, editorials, advertising, exhibitions, theatre, and television. 

On Instagram, however, it’s a different side of him that comes through, he describes himself as an “adventurous traveler”, a “motivated climber”, and a “triathlete”, with a social circle that includes Cher, Gisele Bündchen, Violet Chachki, and Jamie Foxx.

Olarra is openly gay and was previously in a relationship with Welsh actor Luke Evans, best known for Beauty and the Beast. 

What does Pedro Pascal say of Rafael Olarra romance rumours? 

Pascal, for his part, has always kept his personal life tightly under wraps.

He has never publicly addressed his sexuality, and previous rumoured romances, including links to Maria Dizzia in the 1990s, Game of Thrones co-star Lena Headey in 2014, Robin Tunney in 2015, and Jennifer Aniston in 2025, were never confirmed by the actor himself. 

What is well established, though, is his vocal support for the LGBTQ+ community. 

His sister, Lux Pascal, is trans, and his The Last of Us co-star Bella Ramsey identifies as non-binary. 

Speaking to The Wrap last year, Pascal said it is “important to protect people and human beings, especially those who are simply asking for the right to exist in the bodies that belong to them, in a world that they never asked to be brought into.” 

He described members of the LGBTQ+ community as “vulnerable, inspiring, courageous, and brave,” and stressed how “very important” it is to protect those qualities “in humanity.”

Both men share Chilean and South American cultural roots, Pascal was born in Chile, Olarra in Argentina, and their repeated, unhurried public appearances together suggest a comfort and closeness that has caught the attention of fans and media alike. 

Whether romance is officially on the cards remains to be seen. For now, as one fan put it, Pascal appears to simply be out there living his life.