Donna Reed

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Donna Reed
Image:Donna Reed in The Picture of Dorian Gray trailer cropped.jpg
from the trailer for
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Birth name Donna Belle Mullenger
Born January 27 1921(1921-01-27)
Denison, Iowa USA
Died January 14 1986 (aged 64)
Beverly Hills, California
Resting place Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s) William Tuttle (1943-1945)
Tony Owen (1945-1971)
Grover Asmus (1974-1986)
Children Penny, Tony, Timothy, and Mary (b. 1957)

Donna Reed (January 27 1921 - January 14 1986) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Contents

[edit] Life and career

Reed was born Donna Belle Mullenger on a farm near Denison, Iowa to William Richard Mullenger and Hazel Jane Shives.

Image:It's A Wonderful Life.jpg
Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life

Reed is probably best remembered for her roles as the wholesome housewife "Donna Stone" on television's The Donna Reed Show and as "Mary Bailey" in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). However, she occasionally stepped outside that image: early in her career, she posed topless for a series of cheesecake glamour photographs[1] and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1953).

Donna Reed was the mother of four children with husband Tony Owen, two of whom the couple adopted at The Cradle in Evanston, Illinois. She was committed to both motherhood and gender equality. In 1967, in opposition to the Vietnam War, she co-founded Another Mother for Peace. Nevertheless, in later years Reed sometimes complained that she was denied more challenging roles similar to her Oscar-winning part in From Here to Eternity.[2]

In her later years she temporarily replaced an ailing Barbara Bel Geddes as "Miss Ellie" in the television series Dallas in the 1984-1985 season. When Bel Geddes was well enough to return to the role, Reed was fired. She sued the show's production company and received an undisclosed seven-figure settlement, but this settlement came shortly before her death from cancer. During a 2007 TV special, Bring Back..., on the UK's Channel 4 it was revealed by several cast members and Donna Reed's son that Barbara Bel Geddes was never ill and had been replaced after she demanded more money. It was also revealed that Larry Hagman got Bel Geddes back, an action which left Reed jobless.

[edit] Death

She died, aged 64, in Beverly Hills, California from pancreatic cancer and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

The Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts, based in Reed's hometown of Denison, was organized after Reed's death in 1986. 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". The performing arts center was formerly an opera house built in 1914, and later renovated into the Ritz Movie Theater where the young Donna Belle Mullenger first fell in love with movies.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Features

[edit] Short Subjects

  • Personalities (1942)
  • Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Laugh Parade (1953)
Awards
Preceded by
Gloria Grahame
for The Bad and the Beautiful 		Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1953
for From Here to Eternity 		Succeeded by
Eva Marie Saint
for On the Waterfront

[edit] References

  1. ^ OOps Celebs! - Donna Reed topless cheesecake (contains nudity)
  2. ^ San Francisco Chronicle

[edit] External links

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Donna Reed

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