Donna
has always been like a second mother to Paul...and as he reaches
manhood right before her eyes, she can't help but feel concern
for his happiness.
Donna
Reed did a triple take in the artificial twilight of The Naples.
The Naples is not one of Los Angeles' most fashionable restaurants,
but it's one of the most popular with Columbia Pictures and
Screen Gems stars because it's close to the studios and tourists
have never heard of it. The small dining room, festooned with
wine bottles in straw baskets, is so murky that, even if an
autograph hound should wander in, he'd be hard put to recognize
a celebrity.
However,
the dimness didn't hide Paul Petesen--not from Donna Reed. And
it didn't hide the girl who was with him, either, which isn't
surprising, because that girl would have been spectacular at
the bottom of a coal mine. She was blonde, brilliantly blonde.
She was definitely all girl and, if she wasn't older than Paul,
she looked it. Donna glanced in Paul's direction and away. Then
her head jerked back as she recognized the youth who plays her
son on the perenially popular "Donna Reed Show." Paul
glanced at Donna and inwardly fidgetetted. He knew she wouldn't
say anything to him--not then, not there--but he could read
her mind all right. "When we get back to the set,"
he reasoned, "she'll give me one of those knowing searching
looks of hers and say 'Paul, that was a very INTERESTING girl
with you at The Naples.'"
Paul's lunch stuck in his throat. If there was anything in the
world he didn't want, it was Miss Reed's disapproval. He admired
her. Her respected her. He loved her. She was his friend, his
teacher, his second mother (why, he even called her "Mom"
when they were alone together), and he knew she had definite
ideas about the girls he dated. But, after all, Paul considered
himself a normal, red-blooded, typical boy and he liked the
same kind of girls other normal, red-blooded, typical boys liked.
All kinds! So why worry? "To tell the truth, I'm especially
careful about the girls I take to parties," Paul said later,
describing his relationship with his television parents, Donna
and Carl Betz.
"Sometimes
I've changed dates when I've discovered that Miss Reed is going
to be at the place we're going. Miss Reed never says anything--not
much anyway--about the girls I date, but sometimes when she's
seen me with someone I know she doesn't like she'll say, 'Paul
that was a very interesting girl.' That's how it was
the day at The Naples. When she came in, I knew I'd had it.
The girl I was with definitely had eye-popping appeal of the
more coarse variety. Of course, I can date anyone I please,
but I think so much of Miss Reed and Mr. Owen (Donna's husband),
I've learned so much from them, that I try to please them."
Although Donna, reacting more like a mother than a boss, measures
the girls Paul squires around Hollywood with a critical eye,
she takes a remarkably hands-off attitude toward his private
life.
When
Paul was just 14, Tony Owen set the tone through a man-to-man
talk with his wife's on-camera son. "Miss Reed and Mr.
Owen understand boys," Paul says. "They should. They
have a son about my age." One afternoon after Paul had
finished his last scene for the day, Owen approached him. "Paul,"
he said, "let's walk out to my car for a minute. I want
to talk with you." Paul wasn't exactly apprehensive, but
he couldn't help wondering, "Have I done something wrong?
What's coming?" He knew he had a penchant for pranks that
not all grownups appreciated. "Let's see Paul," Owen
said. "You've been on the show two years and you're 14
now, aren't you?" Paul answered shyly, "Yes, sir."
Donna's husband continued, "I know you'll start doing things
you've never done before. Sometimes you may get into a little
trouble, because boys in their teens usually do. We have to
expect that. But, I just want to ask two things of you. In the
first place, be careful. Stay out of scrapes if you can. And
second--and more important--if you do get into trouble, call
me first. Will you do that? No matter what your problem is,
come to me because I'm your friend, and I'll do whatever I can
to help you. Do you promise?"
For the second time, Paul's answer was "Yes, sir,"
but this time he added, "And thank you very much."
So that's how it's been. Paul has always known that Donna and
Tony are his friends and will do their best to give sound advice
or forgiveness--sometimes both, depending upon the situation.
For
Donna and Tony, as well as for his own parents, life with Paul
hasn't always been easy. He's a very independent young man who,
at the age of 19, moved into a house of his own. By his own
admission, he is inclined to drive too fast. Both in and out
of an automobile, he's terribly accident prone. He adores girls.
("I like exactly the same kind of girls everybody else
does," he sums up.) He gets a kick out of parties and sports
cars. He can work like a horse and frolic like a lamb all within
a 24-hour span.
"I
live a nutty life," Paul confessed the other day over a
plate of fruit salad in a Beverly Hills patio restaurant. "Maybe
I don't really listen to anybody. A lot of people close to me
are worried that I'll kill myself--burn out at the age of 20."
Whether
she thinks he'll "burn out" or not, Donna is definitely
worried about Paul's proneness to accidents. He loves to throw
parties at his new house, and he's the first to admit that some
good old-fashioned boozing takes place. Not too much, mind you,
but still, for a guy of Paul's devil-may-care ways, Donna frets
that perhaps some night Paul might get into his car when he
shouldn't. Already he's a mass of scars.
When
Paul had what he calls his "big accident," a major
automobile wreck in 1962, Donna and Tony were in Florida en
route to Nassau. They halted their trip and kept a line open
to the hospital for six hours until doctors determined that
Paul would live.
"Every
time they've started a vacation," he grins, "something's
happened to me. The other week, they'd already left the set
to go to the desert when a tree fell and a piece of wood hit
me.
"When
Mr. Owen called the hospital, he said, 'You didn't even let
us get to Palm Springs. Every time we start anywhere, we know
we'll get a call telling us you have been hurt.'"
"The
first day I took the Cobra to the studio," he says, "I
wanted everybody to see it and ride in it. I got Miss Reed in
the car, and the first thing she said was, 'Don't you go fast.'
So we went riding, and I crept. There we were, going down Beechwood
at about five miles an hour with the car sounding real funny,
because it's not supposed to go that slow. Miss Reed didn't
say anything at first, but finally she couldn't stand it. 'Paul,'
she asked, "'Do you have to go this slow?'"
The
fact that Paul does not call the star of the show "Donna"
is a telling commentary upon their relationship.
Although
Paul has good manners, he's really a rather flip young man who
might be expected to address his elders as his equals. But he's
never been on a first name basis with Donna Reed.
"When
we are by ourselves," Paul emphasizes, "I call her
'Mom,' but working and around other people there's never any
reason to think of her as other than 'Miss Reed.'
"And
this is a tribute to her. A high compliment. You hear some pretty
rough talk around some sets, but not on ours. Nobody ever tells
a dirty joke or says anything that might embarrass her."
Although
Miss Reed is openly fond of Paul and in some ways is inclined
to spoil him (she gave him a Volkswagen for his graduation from
high school), she maintains discipline on the sound stage.
"She
knows me," Paul confesses. "I grew up on that show,
and she would think there was something wrong if I came in on
Monday morning talking only about the good book I'd read the
night before.
"But
she doesn't believe in a double standard. She sets the tempo.
If she disapproves of something, I know it in a minute. But
her eyes. Somebody who doesn't know her as well as I do might
not notice a thing, because if you don't know her well, you
can't tell what she's thinking. But I can tell. The look in
her eyes lets me know."
Paul's
discovered that he can talk with Donna about his problems more
easily than he can talk with his own mother, in the same way
many teenagers can talk with a high school counselor or a part-time
employer more readily than with their parents.
"When
a parent says something," he explains with considerable
insight into the eternal contest between generations, "you
always want to argue."
On
some occasions, though, it's Donna who does all the talking
and Paul who does the listening. "I remember one day,"
he recalls, "when something had come up--well, I don't
know whether I want to go into just what it was--and Miss Reed
said to me, "We're going to have lunch.' We did and it
was just like an after-dinner talk with your own mother. She
straightened out my thinking.
"Sometimes
when we are working, Miss Reed will ask me, 'You have a problem?
Well, this is no place for it.' But then, later, she's glad
to hear my complaints and help me understand why things are
the way they are.
"At
one point, I was feeling very low about my relative importance
around the studio. I never went to Miss Reed about it, but she
came to me. She knew how I was feeling.
"We
talked the whole thing through, and finally she said, 'Paul,
the best thing about being your age is you'll walk over most
of our graves.' In other words, she made me see that I have
a lot of time ahead of me and that the troubles I have today
won't seem very important fifty years from now.
"Miss
Reed never forgets anything. If some problem arises, she may
say, 'What did I tell you about that seven years ago?' and we
both smile."
Without
showing any muscle, Donna has quietly worked to shape Paul's
tastes and attitudes.
Like
most young people, he's been a rock and roll fan since he first
heard the beat, and, for a while, as far as Paul was concerned,
no other music existed. Donna didn't argue the point. For his
seventeenth birthday, she gave him tickets to Verdi's opera,
Aida. "I went," he confesses, "and I
liked it!"
Donna's
most obvious worry where Paul is concerned is about his driving.
At the beginning of every summer Carl Betz says to his television
son, "Be a little sane with your automobile, won't you?"
And Donna adds, "If your car will just stay in the shop,
we'll get you back in once piece."
But
Paul's driving isn't her only concern. She worries too about
his health, his smoking, his diet, his dates.
"When
I'm working," Paul says, "I drink 20 cups of coffee
a day."
As
for his dates--well, if any of Paul's flirtations become a serious
romance, Donna will be one of the first to know about it.
"If
I were going to marry," Paul says, "I'd want the girl
to meet Miss Reed, Mr. Owen and Carl. I wouldn't want to marry
someone they didn't like. And of course, I'd want my mother
and father and sisters to like her, too."
Perhaps
Donna's biggest reason for worry about Paul is the fact that
he's only 19. In many ways, he's quite mature for his years,
but, in others, he had the typical recklessness of a 19-year-old.
He's too young and fun-filled to be afraid of anything.
"No,
I'm not afraid of dying," he says. "If the idea of
dying bothered me, I wouldn't ride in a car or fly in a plane.
I wouldn't even get out of bed in the morning.
"If
I were to die right now, the only thing I'd miss would be not
having children. I'd be sorry about that, because I really like
children.
"But
so far the balance sheet has been in my favor. It's recorded
a lot more good things than bad ones."
As
a symptom of Paul's matter-of-fact attitude toward death, he's
willed his body to U.S.C. and his eyes to the U.C.L.A. eye bank.
Paul
thinks he's been especially close to Donna, because their friendship
has grown on camera as well as off. They've played television
roles closely matched to their true personalities, so, whether
they've been working or resting, their relationship has grown
with the years.
"On
The Donna Reed Show," Paul explains, I've played
a normal boy from 12 to 19 years old with normal boy problems.
"Well,
during that time, I've been a normal boy from 12 to 19 years
old with some of the same problems--although not exactly, Jeff
and I think the same way. He's as bright as I am, but in some
ways, Jeff Stone is insane. Maybe what I mean is, he's too innocent."
Paul
will play Jeff only through next January, because that's when
the show will close down.
"But,
even if the show were going on," Paul thinks, "I couldn't
keep on as Jeff. Even Miss Reed says that."
That
won't mean the end, though, of Paul's friendship with his lady
boss, the glamorous TV star he calls "Mom." It's endured
too long and goes too deep to be governed by a contract.
"Of
course," Paul insists, "I'll still want Miss Reed's
advice. Just because we won't be making a television show together
doesn't mean that I can't still be her son."
Likewise,
Paul's become too important a part in Donna's life to just forget.
Like a true second mother, the worrying habit is too strong
to break.
