Donna Reed | She Puts The Family First

Though she is the star of a time-consuming weekly television show, Donna is never too busy--or too regal--to be a devoted mother

"Some teenaged girls are in a tremendous hurry to grow up. I think it's a great pity. When my daughter Penny (who's now almost 18) was 14, I used to tell her, 'There is no big rush to be devastating and glamorous and the belle of every ball at 14.' Fortunately, Penny listened to me didn't try to rush things too much.

"I feel so sorry for girls who feel a tremendous pressure to be popular with boys at 14--and sometimes even at 11. Somewhere along the line in our culture, young girls have been led down 'the primrose path.' Some of them have come to feel that they must date at 11, be devastating to all boys at 12, and go steady by the time they're 14. They have no chance to grow up and become people. Suddenly, sometimes before they're even in their teens, all their energies are channeled in one direction--to be sexually attractive."

It was Donna Reed speaking and her dark eyes glowed with intensity. We were sitting at a table at the Naples Italian Restaurant in Hollywood, a short distance away from the Columbia Pictures Studio where Donna films "The Donna Reed Show."

Donna could have boasted about her show's new high rating, but didn't. She is far more concerned with the effect of the show on parents and children all over the country. For one reason, she has four children of her own--17-year-old Penny, Tony, 16, Timmy, 14, and Mary Anne, who's only six.

Donna, with her blonde shoulder-length hair, intense dark eyes, wearing a simple red sweater and skirt with a flowered blouse, looked almost like a teenager herself. Her lovely face is very youthful, her figure as slim as it was 12 years ago when I first met her.

Because Penny had the wise guidance of her mother, she never attempted to be 20 at 14. Even at 17 she's in no hurry to rush things. She attends the Desert Sun, a private preparatory high school, and plans to go to college. She doesn't go steady, though there's one boy she prefers to the others.

"I've told Penny that it's wise to prepare for some kind of work before getting married," said Donna. "This gets a girl away from the idea of becoming a wife and mother and nothing else. When a woman reaches 45, her children are usually grown and she has another 25 or 30 years of life. How hard on her--and possibly on the children, too--if by that time she has no interests in life other than the children! I think it's far better if she has other interests and she might as well start acquiring them before she gets married.

"I have no guarantee that Penny has paid attention to what I have said about this, but I hope she has. Anyway, this is the year she applies to enter college. I'm glad she's planning to go."

All of the other children know that they can discuss their problems with Donna and their father, Tony Owen.

"The key to their lives is the atmosphere of their home," said a close friend. "Some Hollywood mothers think they're doing their duty by their children if they come in, like visiting princesses, half an hour before the child's bedtime.

"Before Donna agreed to appear in a regular TV series, she asked herself, 'Will the children suffer?'

"She decided to schedule her life and theirs so that they wouldn't be deprived of their parents' attention. They always have breakfast and dinner together. Donna may not be a bit hungry when she sits down to dine at 6:30, but she wouldn't think of missing the meal because she wants that companionship with her youngsters. After dinner, there's a good deal of family talk. If there are problems, they are thrashed out. The atmosphere at home is that of any good, normal, average family--it isn't at all Hollywoodish."

Donna, whose real name is Donna Mullenger, was raised on a farm in Iowa without electricity or household conveniences.

"It wasn't a horrendous experience," she says. "Very few farmers in our area had electricity. We were the rule, not the exception."

As a youngster, Donna milked cows, drove a tractor, baked bread. When she became a Hollywood star and the story of her farm background came out, a skeptical Hollywood actor said, "I'll bet any amount of money that she's never been near a farm, doesn't know which end of a cow is which, and could never successfully milk one."

He lost his bet when Donna actually milked a cow for the benefit of all such skeptics.

Though her children have far easier chores than those she performed as a youngster, Donna believes that her children should have some chores to do. "Tony and I are not exceedingly strict but a bit on the strict side," she said. "The children's chores are not tremendous, but they make their own beds and pick up their own clothes. Tony and Timmy also walk and feed the dog. Tony sometimes helps wash the big lanai window. Timmy polishes his dad's shoes. He gets a small salary for it.

"All the children except Mary Anne get allowances. I don't want to tell what they are. The children feel that they're not nearly enough, and I don't want to make them lose status with their friends by publicizing the amounts.

"However, I don't feel children's allowances should be extravagant. One teenaged girl I know receives $20 a week for just her clothing allowance from her parents. Starting with such a big allowance, how will she feel if she has to face adversity? Even Penny agrees with me that $20 a week for clothes for a teenager is too much."

Donna and Tony help the children with their problems without being at all obtrusive about it. One day Tony, Jr., who attends University High, came home from school and told his mother, "I've been invited to a party Saturday night but I'm not going."

She remembered that Tony had been very fond of parties up to about the age of 12 and then had lost interest in them. She wondered if it wasn't time to get him back into the social swing.

Joan is a thoroughly nice girl and Donna had a hunch the party would be fine. Tony seemed to have qualms. There had been a great deal of talk and even some articles in magazines about how various interlopers were crashing teenagers' parties and introducing a wild element. Sometimes the police had to be called.

This didn't sound like that kind of party. Donna suggested that Tony check up on what youngsters were going to be there. He found that the girls' parents would be present and that everything seemed all right.

A few days later he decided he would go to the party after all, with a girl friend.

It was obvious that he still had qualms about going to a party. Perhaps this was the shyness of an adolescent boy in part.

He came home at midnight, grinning happily. "The party was the greatest I've ever been to," he reported. "We played word games, sang folk songs and danced. Everyone behaved. We had a ball."

Donna smiled to herself. She wants the children to have fun--as long as it's the right kind of fun.

Though Donna once presented a togetherness award for a national magazine, she is not a strong believer in total, all-absorbing togetherness. "The children all have their own individualities, their own personalities," she says. "I don't want to be one of those mothers who says 'Let's all go fishing together.' What if one child would rather stay home and read a book? Should he be compelled to go fishing when he loathes it just because the others are doing it? Within limits, I feel that each child should have a right to develop his own personality."

It's been said that "the family that prays together, stays together" and this has been true of Tony and Donna. They first met about 20 years ago. Donna had made the tremendous jump from the small town of Denison, Iowa, to Los Angeles because there was no tuition to pay at Los Angeles City College and she could live with an aunt. She had no idea of becoming a movie actress; radio was her intended field. She majored in drama but also took shorthand and typing so she'd have a way to support herself while trying her wings in radio.

In her second year at college, her classmates selected her as the campus beauty queen. The day the story was given to the Los Angeles newspapers must have been a dull day for news. Ordinarily a newspaper would handle such a story on an inside page. But Donna Reed's photograph with the headline "Elected Campus Queen, Major in Drama" appeared on the front page of Los Angeles' leading newspaper.

At once her phone began to ring. Movie talent scouts were fascinated by the story of the farmer's daughter who had never used a dial telephone or ridden on a street car or bus until she came to Hollywood. The fact that she was also a drama student inflamed their hopes. A leading talent agency wanted to sign her and arrange a movie test for her immediately.

"I wanted to finish the semester at school," she told them. "I'd like to take the test in three months."

"But Hollywood may have forgotten you in three months," said the big brass at the agency.

"How does anyone know I'll be any good as a movie actress?" asked Donna. "If I finish this course, I'll always be able to earn my living as a secretary."

They thought she was mad, but told her to get in touch with them again in three months.

Working for Famous Artists, the agency she eventually signed with, was Tony Owen. At least, he had been working there. The day she met him, he was busy saying goodbye to the head of the agency, preparatory to going into the Coast Guard.

"It was not love at first sight for me," Donna says emphatically. "All I was conscious of was a man with black hair and dark eyes in a Coast Guard uniform." Tony, however, says that the moment he saw Donna he made up his mind, "This is the girl I'm going to marry."

They didn't see each other for an entire year. Then Tony returned to civilian life, got a position working for Charles Feldman at MGM studio. Perhaps it was coincidence, perhaps fate, but by this time Donna was under contract at MGM.

"Tony and I promptly proceeded to disagree about everything," laughs Donna. "If I wanted to make a picture, he thought it was the worst possible film for me. If he liked a script, I thought it was awful. It seemed as if he had made up his mind to disagree with me! I realized later that he is sometimes deliberately provocative in order to find out what you really think and want."

What Donna really thought and wanted was growing more important every day to Tony, but he wasn't ready to tell her that yet.

"He has a great charm, a marvelous sense of humor and great drive. He is gregarious and extroverted."

Donna laughed. "The night I knew I was the night he first proposed. That evening we were sitting across from each other at a table at Martha Smith's tea room on Beverly Drive. We had known each other a year and a half. Suddenly, Tony told me, 'You're going to marry me.' At that moment I knew--I can't tell you how or why--that I loved Tony."

Donna wasn't ready to capitulate that quickly, particularly to a man who told her she was going to marry him rather than asked her.

Twice a day for about ten days he brought up the subject. Each time he told her told her she was going to marry him. Finally she weakened and admitted he was right.

They decided they wanted a small wedding at the Presbyterian church. They invited his sister, Donna's sister and two friends.

It so happened that on that very day, in June 1945, Judy Garland was marrying David Rose. Hers was a very large wedding, attended by the press, a host of friends, and her studio boss and mentor, Louis B. Mayer. After the Garland wedding, all the wedding guests came to the wedding of Tony and Donna and wished them well.

Then Tony and Donna left for the railroad station to board the Super Chief, a crack train. Tony had arranged to have the Super Chief lounge backed in early so he could hold a wedding reception there.

"I had thought," said Donna, "we'd have a few people at the reception. Instead you should have seen that lounge! Tony had invited everyone he had met in the past couple of weeks to the reception. The place was jammed. If I hadn't already known that Tony is one of the most gregarious of men, I would have found out that evening.

"My reaction? I hoped I could find enough energy to live the rest of my life with Tony. No woman could remain introverted and live happily with Tony.

"Further evidence of his friendliness to people of all types came soon after our wedding. He was addicted to calling at ten minutes of six and saying he would bring home four people for dinner at 6:30. The first time this happened, it was a bombshell. I suffered, cried a little, worried what the cook would say. When you're expecting to cook for two people, it's quite a feat to whip up a dinner for six in 40 minutes. When I told the cook, she looked like she'd been shot in the head

"It took two or three years to cure him. Now Tony usually gives me more warning. He is not so demanding; I am more flexible. When we have company without advance warning, I let them take pot luck with the family."

Over the years, Tony and Donna have adapted themselves to each other in many ways. Though they may disagree on little things, they present a solid family unit on the big ones. The children never find a chink in their armor. If one of the children has misbehaved, they agree on how he should be punished--usually by the withdrawing of a privilege, such as watching a favorite TV program. "Occasionally a child may need a spanking," says Donna, 'but usually withdrawing a privilege is more civilized."

Working together hasn't hurt but rather helped the solidity of their marriage. They weren't even disillusioned about eight years ago when Donna starred in "Beyond Mombasa" which Tony produced in Africa and turned out to be a flop. It was the only film Tony ever made that didn't make money, Donna assured me.

"We weren't peeved about it," said Donna. "The reason was easy to trace. There was a rash of pictures about Africa that year, and the public got fed up."

Tony and Donna looked on the bright side, remembered that they'd gotten a trip to Africa and to London with the family out of the film--and didn't feel too badly.

Tony continued to produce other films. But two years after "Beyond Mombasa" he received a report on the box-office receipt of pictures made that year by other producers. The receipts were shockingly low. He said to Donna, "I'm not going to make any more pictures. It's financial madness. I'm going into television."

Accustomed to Tony's ability to size up a situation and act accordingly, Donna didn't protest. If he believed that television was where his future lay, she'd go right along with that.

Donna says "I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. With Tony, I knew I wouldn't have to fly to Timbuktu for a premiere when I should be home taking care of the children. A married woman with a large family shouldn't be in a regular series unless she can get every break. Otherwise, it's too time-consuming."

Donna understands Tony's problems as a producer; he understands her problems not only as a star but also as a mother who wants to spend as much time as possible with her children

Donna feels that her own children are the best critics of the show because their attitudes are average. If one of the children gets away with misbehaving on a TV show, according to a script, Timmy will say, "You'd never let me get by with a thing like that. How come you let him get away with it?" When the children point out some such defect in a script, Tony does his best to have it remedied.

He cuts out many laughs on the show if they result from wisecracks by youngsters. He feels that showing youngsters talking back to their parents is bad for parent-children relationships.

Once a year, on the last shooting day before Christmas, Tony and Donna throw a big set party for the cast and crew. This is such a gala affair their children nearly always come to it. Last year, her nurse brought Mary Anne, the youngest, On the way over, Mary confided to her nurse, "I know there isn't any Santa Claus."

show