Donna Reed

I don’t actually like The Donna Reed Show much. Or didn’t when I was a kid, anyway; I haven’t watched it in decades. I can’t now answer if I think myself that it’s anti-feminist. Donna didn’t. She thought it was important that she herself was shown to be a smart, capable woman. She ran the household the way she herself did in her own home. And if, you know, actual Donna Reed had the job of portraying Donna Stone and almost certainly had a household staff of some sort, even if it was just a housekeeper and a yard man, she also had twice as many kids as Donna Stone, and if she was actually taking care of her kids, that really is hard work by itself.

Reed was born in the most wholesome way possible. Donna Belle Mullenger was born on an Iowa farm. She was the oldest of five. They were Methodist. She was voted Campus Queen and did school plays. And she wanted to be a teacher. She couldn’t afford college and for some reason an aunt suggested she move to LA and go to community college there. She acted on the stage a few times and apparently got multiple offers, eventually taking MGM up on their offer—though she insisted on finishing her AA first, to be sure she would have something to fall back on.

Not that, in the long run, she needed it. For her second credit, she’s fourth-billed in Shadow of the Thin Man. If not all her credits are as noteworthy as that, it’s clear she was already off to a heck of a start. She was courted in The Courtship of Andy Hardy. She wasn’t always cast wisely—it’s hard to conceive of her winning Dorian Gray—but in 1946, she would be cast in what was frankly the perfect role for her. As Mary Bailey, she was sweet and smart. (I’d argue that she was smarter than George, but never mind.) She was the epitome of Middle America Sweetheart.

I’m not sure anyone ever cast her so well before or since. She’s obviously doing good work in other things—after all she won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity—but there’s always something a bit odd about her in the role. She never quite comes across as how hard she likely ought to be. She’s taken a wrong turn somewhere. As for The Far Horizons, the less said about Donna Reed as Sacagawea, the better. Honestly I think the lack of roles for her has a lot to do with the fewer female roles under the Code, because there were so few parts for smart women of any kind.

After The Donna Reed Show went off the air, she took time out from acting to spend more time with her children. Her older son, Anthony, was of an age to be drafted. During their talks, he persuaded her that the war in Vietnam was immoral. Reed went from being a Republican and Barry Goldwater supporter to being a Eugene McCarthy supporter and the co-chair of Another Mother for Peace. She was able to recognize that her beliefs were wrong and make a change, and that’s at least as much to be admired as her acting.