Bea Donovan, `King’s Queen,’ Pioneered Live TV Cooking

Carole Beers – Seattle Times – Sep 1, 1999

There was the time during a live commercial when the brandy on the holiday pudding failed to ignite. Or the time a viewer called to say the cookies in the on-camera oven were smoking.

Life for Beatrice Germaine “Bea” Donovan, known to viewers as “KING’s Queen” during her 27 years as a KING-TV cooking-show guru, was never dull.

“She had one of the longest-running cooking shows in the country,” said her son, Brian Donovan of Duvall. “When everything was live, if you made a mistake, it stood. Luckily, she was good at ad-libbing. If something didn’t come out looking quite the way she expected, she’d say, `It’s not perfect, but you get the idea.’ ”

Mrs. Donovan died Monday (Aug. 30, 1999) of complications following hip surgery. She was 91.

She started her KING-TV career in 1950. She talked in a friendly, matter-of-fact way as she whipped up souffles, appetizers and Thanksgiving turkeys. She projected the air of a friendly and knowledgable neighbor.

In the early days, Mrs. Donovan did her own planning, shopping and food preparation, then brought the finished food to the studio, which had a fake sink. She washed dishes in a pan in the restroom.

During the mid-1940s, she demonstrated home appliances at the Bon Marche. She also had a daily afternoon cooking show there.

In the late 1940s, she returned to the P-I and also did food commercials. She was “discovered” by a KING-TV producer while doing an ice-cream commercial during a break in a televised UW basketball game.

Mrs. Donovan did not miss a KING-TV broadcast in 27 years, and never refused a request for a recipe.