By
Wallace A. Grimes
Donna
Reed's blunt words of advice to starry-eyed young girls with Hollywood
or New York television ambitions were:
"Stay
home."
That
was the movie-TV star's way, in a telephone interview with TV Times,
of warning glamor-struck girls from impulsively dumping homes, friends,
jobs and education for heartbreak.
Later
in the interview, Miss Reed, who broke into movies herself the hard
way and became an Academy Award winner, explained what sensible steps
could be taken by a young woman earnest about a TV career.
"Hollywood
and New York are more full than ever before with girls who can't--and
probably won't--get a break in television and motion pictures,"
she said.
"Television
is the hardest of all mediums to break into," she continued. "It
was much easier to break into movies years ago, and even that was difficult."
Miss
Reed was speaking from her Beverly Hills home where she was spending
a day off with her four children and husband Tony Owen, who produces
"The Donna Reed Show." (The ABC series is aired locally over
WTCN-TV at 7 p.m. Thursdays.) The next day she was to start working
in the sixth of the new series, which will start its third year on the
net in September.
A
onetime Denison, Iowa, farm girl, she talked about her early days in
Hollywood when she worked as a dishwasher, librarian, and student at
Los Angeles City college, where she was elected campus queen and attracted
talent scouts.
Then
ensued a string of films in which she played--as she puts it--"namby
pamby" roles. But she moved up in the acting ranks from an ingenue
with apple good looks to the sultry characterization in "From Here
to Eternity," a part which earned her the Academy award.
"Certainly,
the rewards in this business are just fantastic," she said. "It
opens a door to a much different world, populated by some of the most
interesting people on earth.
"But
it has many ups and downs. For instance, it is very difficult to stay
married. I've been lucky. I've been married fifteen years and have a
lovely and loveable family."
Then
Miss Reed offered suggestions to the young women who want to live in
that "fantastic" world themselves:
"Never
leave your hometown without first completing your education," she
said. "And that includes college. Whether you win success or not,
you will then have the cultural and intellectual background to make
you a worthwhile person in your own right.
"Then,
I'd say, try to break into local radio and television work. Attend an
acting school, if you can, and take part in amateur dramatics.
"You'll
need all the experience you can get before you will have any chance
at all in Hollywood or New York."
She
added, "If you marry, and start raising a family...well, you've
got the most important thing in life."
Later,
talking shop, Miss Reed explained how the U-2 plane incident killed
a hope of her husband's to film several of "The Donna Reed Show"
in Russia.
"It
would have been a real chance to show how the ordinary Russian man,
woman and child lives," she said. "But then the U-2 plane
incident occurred and Russian officials became very uncooperative."
When
the show began in 1958, producer Owen displayed a similar attitude.
He told writers he wanted scripts which would "faithfully mirror
situations which would happen in any average American home," according
to Phil Sharp, a head writer.
The
writers also were warned not to make Donna Stone's two children faultless
and slavishly obedient, but to make them realistic.
As
for the character played by Miss Reed, Owen ordered that Mrs. Stone
must be a strong personality who reacted to situations positively and
dynamically.
And,
her views need not always coincide with those of her doctor husband,
he ruled.
That
from a husband yet!
*article
from Minnesota TV Times, August 20-26, 1960
