Juanita Katt: Barbara Hale’s daughter, and what the records actually show
Juanita Katt was the youngest of three children born to Perry Mason actress Barbara Hale and actor Bill Williams. She was born in Los Angeles in December 1953 and never worked in entertainment.
The pages ranking for her name cannot agree on whether she is alive. Some give her current age as 72. One states she died in January 2017. Another says she died in Illinois aged 63. A fourth declares in one paragraph that she died in Sherman Oaks and in another that no confirmation of her death exists.
Those accounts are not all wrong in the way they look. Two of them can be reconciled, and this page explains how.
Juanita Katt: quick facts
| Detail | What’s documented |
|---|---|
| Born | 22 December 1953, Los Angeles |
| Mother | Barbara Hale, actress, 1922–2017 |
| Father | Bill Williams, born Herman August Wilhelm Katt, died 1992 |
| Siblings | Jodi Katt (b. 1947), William Katt (b. 1951) |
| Position in family | Youngest of three |
| Career | None in entertainment; nothing publicly documented |
| Married name | Reportedly King |
| Public statements | None, ever |
Is Juanita Katt alive?
The honest answer is that it is not settled, and here is why the sources look like they contradict each other when they may not.
She was alive in early 2017. Barbara Hale died on 26 January 2017. Her obituary in the Irish Times ran on 4 February. It lists her as survived by her son William and her two daughters, Jody and Juanita Katt, along with six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. That is a mainstream newspaper obituary and it is reliable.
A genealogical record gives a death date later that same year. MyHeritage carries an entry for Juanita Laura-Lee Katt, born 22 December 1953 and died 19 November 2017 at 63. It lists her parents as Barbara Katt née Hale and Hermann Katt, and names two children, Alika King and Ukyah King.
Those two things are compatible. She could have survived her mother in January and died nine months later in November. Nobody writing about her appears to have noticed that both can be true.
What stops this being a settled fact is the source. MyHeritage family trees accept user submissions, so the entry is not equivalent to a death certificate or a published obituary. No obituary for Juanita Katt has been found in any newspaper.
So the position is this. She was certainly alive in February 2017. A specific and internally coherent record says she died that November. Pages calculating her age in 2026 are ignoring that record, and pages declaring her dead in January 2017 are confusing her with her mother, who died in Sherman Oaks that month.
Her parents
Barbara Hale played Della Street opposite Raymond Burr in Perry Mason from 1957 to 1966 and won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1959. She returned to the role in 30 television films between 1985 and 1995, and was the last surviving member of the original cast. She died at 94 in Sherman Oaks of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Bill Williams was born Herman August Wilhelm Katt. He starred in The Adventures of Kit Carson and died in 1992. Hale and Williams married on 22 June 1946 and stayed married until his death, 46 years.
One small correction worth making. At least one page publishes Juanita’s religion as Christianity. Her mother was a follower of the Baháʼí Faith, which is documented and cited on Hale’s own encyclopaedia entry. Nothing at all is documented about Juanita’s beliefs.
Her siblings
William Katt, born 1951, is the one who followed the parents into acting. He starred in The Greatest American Hero and appeared in Carrie, and he played opposite his mother in several of the Perry Mason television films. He has three sons: Clayton, Dakota and Emerson.
Jodi Katt, sometimes written Jody, born 1947, has stayed as private as her younger sister. Almost nothing about her adult life is on record either.
Barbara Hale’s obituaries reported six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren without saying which belonged to which child. William accounts for three. The rest are unidentified in public sources.
The invented obituary
One page ranking for this name publishes an entire biography that appears to be fabricated.
It gives her birth date as 2 December 1951, describes her as her parents’ only daughter, and says she died in 2017 aged 65. It names a husband, John King, whom she supposedly met at the University of Southern California and married in 1973. It names two children, William and Samantha, and four grandchildren. It says her obituary ran in the Los Angeles Times and describes her volunteering at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
None of that holds. Her birth year is 1953, not 1951. She was not an only daughter, since Jodi came first. The named children do not match the two in the genealogical record. And no Los Angeles Times obituary for her has been found by anyone.
The one element with a trace of support is the surname King, which does appear in the family record as her children’s surname. Everything built around it looks invented.
What isn’t verified about Juanita Katt
- Her death. A genealogical entry gives 19 November 2017. No obituary or official record has surfaced to confirm it.
- Her children. Two names appear in a user-submitted family tree. A different page names two entirely different children.
- Her marriage. The King surname recurs, but no marriage record, date or spouse has been documented.
- Her religion, height and orientation. One profile publishes all three in a table for a woman who never gave an interview.
- Any career. No credited work appears in any entertainment database or professional record.
- Her middle name. Reported as Laura-Lee and as Lauralee, unconfirmed either way.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Juanita Katt?
The youngest child of actors Barbara Hale and Bill Williams, born in Los Angeles in December 1953.
Is Juanita Katt still alive?
Unclear. She survived her mother in January 2017, but a genealogical record gives her death as November that year.
Did Juanita Katt have an obituary?
No published obituary has been found, which is the main reason her status remains unresolved.
Who are Juanita Katt’s siblings?
Jodi Katt, born 1947, and the actor William Katt, born 1951.
Was Juanita Katt an actress?
No. She has no credited work in film or television.
Who was her mother?
Barbara Hale, who played Della Street on Perry Mason and won an Emmy for the role in 1959.
What was her father’s real name?
Herman August Wilhelm Katt. He worked as Bill Williams.
Conclusion
Search results for this name split cleanly into two camps, one insisting she is 72 and living quietly, the other reporting a death nobody can source. Both are stating as fact something they have not checked.
What can be said is narrow. She was born into a well-known family in 1953, stayed out of it entirely, was named among her mother’s survivors in February 2017, and left no public record of her own. Anything more specific than that is currently a guess, including the parts of this page that say so.
JacksonPadilla is a writer at Around Celebrities, covering celebrity families, relationships, biographies, and the stories behind the stars. With a focus on clear and engaging storytelling, Kole helps readers discover the people and connections beyond the spotlight.
