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"Forty pictures I was in, and all I remember is 'What kind of bra will you be wearing today, honey?' That was always the area of big decision - from the neck to the navel."
-- Donna Reed
Despite her association with the squeaky-clean and conservative 1950s, Donna Reed became an anti-nuclear activist and anti-Vietnam protester. She also founded the group Another Mother for Peace.
Donna Reed
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Donna Belle Mullenger
27 January 1921, Denison, Iowa
14 January 1986, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California
Donna Reed (January 27, 1921 – January 14, 1986) was an American film and television actress.
She received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene, a prostitute, in From Here to Eternity, and received the 1963 Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star - Female for her performance as Donna Stone, an American middle class wife and mother, in The Donna Reed Show. In 1984, she replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie in the television melodrama, Dallas, and sued the production company for breach of contract when she was abruptly fired upon Bel Geddes's decision to return to the show.
Reed was married three times and the mother of four children. She died of pancreatic cancer.
Reed was born Donna Belle Mullenger on a farm near Denison, Iowa, the daughter of Hazel Jane Shives (1899–1975) and William Richard Mullenger (1893–1981). The eldest of five children, she was raised as a Methodist.
After graduating from Denison High School, Reed planned to become a teacher, but was unable to pay for college. She decided to move to California to attend Los Angeles City College on the advice of her aunt. While attending college, she performed in various stage productions but had no plans to become an actress. After receiving several offers to screen test for studios, Reed eventually signed with MGM, but insisted on finishing her education first.
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After signing with MGM in 1941, Reed made her film debut that same year in The Get-Away, opposite Robert Sterling. Billed in her first feature as Donna Adams, MGM decided against the name and changed it to Donna Reed. She starred in The Courtship of Andy Hardy and had a supporting role with Edward Arnold in Eyes in the Night (1942). In 1943, she appeared in The Human Comedy with Mickey Rooney, followed by roles in The Picture of Dorian Gray and They Were Expendable, both in 1945.
Her "girl-next-door" good looks and warm on-stage personality made her a popular pin-up for many GIs during WWII. She personally answered letters from many GIs serving overseas.
In 1946, she was lent to RKO Pictures for the role of Mary Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The film has since been named as one of the 100 best American films ever made by the American Film Institute and is regularly aired on television during the Christmas season.
Following the release of It's a Wonderful Life, Reed appeared in Green Dolphin Street (1947) with Lana Turner and Van Heflin, and Scandal Sheet (1952). In 1953, she played the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke, a prostitute and mistress of Montgomery Clift's character in the World War II drama From Here to Eternity. The role earned Reed an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 1953.
Beginning in 1958, she starred in The Donna Reed Show, a television situation-comedy series that featured her as Donna Stone, the idealized housewife of pediatrician Dr. Alex Stone (Carl Betz) and mother of Jeff (Paul Petersen) and Mary Stone (Shelley Fabares). It ran for eight seasons on ABC. Reed won a Golden Globe Award and earned four Emmy Award nominations for her work on the series.
After The Donna Reed Show ended its run in 1966, Reed took time off from acting and helped form the advocacy group, Another Mother For Peace in 1967. Reed also became an opponent of the Vietnam War and the use of nuclear weapons. She returned to acting in the 1970s, appearing in various guest spots in television series and television movies.
In 1984, she temporarily replaced Barbara Bel Geddes, who had decided to step down from her role as "Miss Ellie" in the television series Dallas in the 1984-85 season. When Bel Geddes agreed to return to the role for the 1985-86 season, Reed was abruptly fired. She sued the show's production company for breach of contract and later settled out of court for over a million dollars.
From 1943 to 1945, Reed was married to make up artist William Tuttle. In 1945, she married producer Tony Owen (1907–1984) with whom she had four children: Penny Jane, Anthony, Timothy, and Mary Anne (the two oldest children were adopted). Reed and Owen divorced in 1971, and three years later, she married retired U. S. Army Colonel Grover W. Asmus (1926–2003).
Reed died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California on January 14, 1986, thirteen days short of her 65th birthday. She had been diagnosed with the terminal illness three months prior. She is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
In 1987, Reed's widower, actresses Shelley Fabares and Norma Connolly, and numerous friends, associates, and family members founded the Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts. Based in Reed's hometown of Denison, the non-profit organization grants scholarships for performing arts students, runs an annual festival of performing arts workshops, and operates "The Donna Reed Center for the Performing Arts".
Reed's hometown of Denison, Iowa, hosts the annual Donna Reed Festival. Reed's childhood home was located on Donna Reed Drive in Denison but was destroyed by a fire in 1983.
Reed's Academy Award is on display at W.A. McHenry museum house in Denison, Iowa.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Donna Reed has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1610 Vine Street.
In May 2010 Turner Classic Movies honored Donna as their star of the month which saw Mary Owen pay a special tribute to her mother.
Her last husband Grover Asmus started a program called the Donna Reed Foundation that led to the Donna Reed festival held yearly in Denison, IA. It's a celebration of Donna, and includes classes, performances. Many stars attend such as Shelley Fabares, Debbie Reynolds, and Loren Janes.
In the scene from It's a Wonderful Life (1946) where she and James Stewart throw rocks at the old Granville house, director Frank Capra had originally planned to use a double in Donna's place to throw the rock. Miss Reed, however, was an accomplished baseball player in high school and threw very well, as evidenced by her toss in the movie.
Measurements: 34B-24-34 (measured in 1954), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).
Four children by husband/producer Tony Owen : Penny Owen, Tony Owen Jr., Timothy Owen and Mary Owen. Two were adopted. Mary, their last child, was born to them in 1957, a year before the start of Donna's classic TV show, which Tony executive produced.
Learned of her firing from "Dallas" (1978) from a reporter while on a vacation to Paris. She was in the process of suing the show's producers before her death in January, 1986.
The woman on the cover of Rush's Permanent Waves album is modeled after her.
In Italy, a great deal of her films were dubbed by Renata Marini and Dhia Cristiani (most notably From Here to Eternity (1953)). Occasionally she was also dubbed by Miranda Bonansea (in Green Dolphin Street (1947)), Rosetta Calavetta and Micaela Giustiniani. The great Lidia Simoneschi also lent her voice to Reed in Frank Capra's much celebrated It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 725-727. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Although she her image was generally associated that of the the squeaky-clean, conservative 1950s housewife and mother, she won her Oscar for From Here to Eternity (1953) for playing a prostitute.
Had a close relationship with her TV daughter, Shelley Fabares. Was considered by Fabares as her second mother until Reed's death in 1986.
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