The Children Nobody Wanted
1981 American made-for-television film directed by Richard Michaels
The Children Nobody Wanted is a 1981 American made-for-television drama film based on the true story of child advocate Tom Butterfield (1940–1982), the youngest bachelor to become a legal foster parent in the state of Missouri, and his creation of the Butterfield Ranch.
Plot
Working in a state mental hospital, nineteen-year-old Tom Butterfield (Fredric Lehne), befriends an abandoned eight-year-old boy for whom authorities cannot find a foster family. Compelled by the child’s plight, Butterfield and supportive girlfriend Jennifer Williams (Michelle Pfeiffer) transform a dilapidated country club in Marshall, Missouri, into the Butterfield Ranch for homeless boys.
Cast
Tom Butterfield
Butterfield began the lengthy process of developing his story for the screen, moving to Los Angeles in 1978. By this stage, his ranch was a non-for-profit organisation and received almost $1 million a year for four homes in Marshall. "When I was in college," he once said, "I didn't intend to be a foster parent or get into social work and start a boys home." He added at the time of the telemovie's production, "I didn’t really start out twenty years ago with the intent to make a movie."
He continued to work in Los Angeles to raise funds for Butterfield Youth Services Inc., until being hospitalised on 15 November 1982 for acute pneumonia and respiratory problems. He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on 13 December 1982 following a biopsy to clean out a congested lung, which caused his body to go into shock. He was forty-two.
Production significance
The movie was Michelle Pfeiffer's first starring role and added to her acting resume and small screen presence. Agent John LaRocca "landed her roles in three television films" in 1981.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Children Nobody Wanted” as 1981 American made-for-television film directed by Richard Michaels. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1981 American made-for-television film directed by Richard Michaels. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3661075. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1940, 1982 and 1978.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Children Nobody Wanted” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.