Andrea Darvi


Andrea Plate aka Andrea Darvi, now known as Andrea Plate was an American child actress in the 1960s mainly working in television.
Her roles were all as children in non-child productions and as such although she had "leading roles" in many TV episodes focusing upon a child in the storyline, she was never classified as a "child star". A popular choice in casting she was a familiar face on American TV, peaking in demand in 1964 when aged 12.

Life

The daughter of Samuel and Evelyn Margolis, she had her acting debut in episode 47 of The Twilight Zone: The Night of the Meek released in December 1960. She appeared again in The Twilight Zone in 1961 in episode 48:Dust. In 1961 she appears in an episode of 87th Precinct and the highly popular Peter Gunn. She appeared in two episodes of The Untouchables in both 1961 and 1962 and an episode of both Bonanza and Pete and Gladys in 1962. Also in 1962 she featured in Hawaiian Eye and Adventures in Paradise. In 1963 she appeared in The Danny Thomas Show and an episode of Death Valley Days. In 1964 she appeared in Gunsmoke. She appeared as Nezhmet in a 1966 episode of I Spy. She appeared in 4 episodes of the TV series Combat!, including one 1966 episode named after her character "Gitty".
She was in the Disney movie "Monkeys Go Home" and appeared as Greti Koska in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain in 1966. She largely retired from acting in 1966 to pursue an education. She made one final appearance in 1971 in The Night God Screamed. She thereafter had a normal life, training as a journalist. She also worked as a social worker.
She was author of Pretty Babies: An Insider's Look at the World of the Holywood Child Star published in 1983.

Family

In 1979 she married journalist Tom Plate who later became a professor at UCLA. They live in Beverly Hills.
Andrea, a licensed clinical social worker in California, worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for nearly 15 years.
In 2019 she authored the internationally published book Madness: In the Trenches of America's Troubled Department of Veterans Affairs.
They have one child and two grandchildren.