By Mary Jo Clements

---

RIGHT: Shelley and Lou Adler

“Life is so good right now!”

Shelley says it softly and with such depth of feeling that you know it’s straight from the heart.

You can read the message in her eyes. They seem to have a richer glow these days, and for several good reasons, reasons of health, happiness, and exciting new interests.

Recovered now from a bout with mononucleosis, “Mary” of The Donna Reed Show, has finished a second single record, Johnny Loves Me, and an album, to follow up her hit singleton, Johnny Angel, which hit the top while she was confined to bed. Also, she’s relaxing on a six-week vacation from television cameras, 7 o’clock calls, and 12-hour shooting schedules.

Equally wonderful is the special guy in Shelley’s life, 26-year-old Lou Adler, west coast chief of the Nevins-Kirschner Publishing Co., pops record publishers. Though they’ve made no definite wedding plans, it’s obvious from Shelley’s comments that he has the qualities she most admires.

“I liked him right away, but I didn’t realize it was anything romantic,” she recalls. “We knew each other well, and became friends before we started dating. That’s important.”

Asked if it was love at first sight, she replied thoughtfully, “I felt different about him, and I enjoyed being with him. I didn’t think about dating anyone else.” She hasn’t dated anyone but Lou since their first evening out, dinner at the Islander, back in February, 1961.

They met at Christmas time, 1960, through Jan and Dean, whom Lou serves as personal manager. They had set him up with a date with Shelley’s sister, Smokey. As it happened, it wasn’t long before Smokey was going with someone else, and Shelley meantime had stopped dating a current escort.

Getting together with mutual friends and spending quiet evenings is her idea of a fine date. A large evening consists of dinner and dancing at one of the famous hotel restaurants in Hollywood.

“I want to continue with my career until I’m married,” she says. “Lou thinks I should continue to work, too, after the series is over, so that I won’t wonder later if I’ve missed something. He wants me to do the things that will make me happy.”

It’s generally believed that The Donna Reed Show will not continue into a sixth season. The cast will complete the shows for the fifth season next March, and Shelley then would be free to go into movies.

“I would like to do straight dramatic parts in pictures,” she says. “Film comedy would be challenging, but after the light comedy of the series, I would prefer straight drama.” Shelley, who’s been working since she was six, has never studied acting, nor has she studied singing.

She confesses she was in a state of shock when her first record became a hit. “I didn’t think it could happen, or that anyone would buy it but my mother and father. I really don’t think I can sing,” she says candidly. Several hundred thousand Shelley fans disagreed on this view, however, and sent the record soaring to the top spot in the country practically overnight after its release in mid-February. It was actually recorded in September, 1961.

Under contract to Colpix Records, she recorded her first album, as yet untitled, on May 9, along with a second singleton. The album includes some new original tunes, plus some soft and slow songs, such as True Love, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo.

Confessing she is scared at recording sessions, Shelley says, however, that she enjoys working with people in the record business. “I like acting best, though. I’d never give that up for recording.”

As usual, she enthuses about the success of one of her associates on the show. This would be Paul Petersen, her “brother” in the TV family, whose own singleton, She Can’t Find Her Keys, popped to the top about the same time as Johnny Angel.

“Paul has recorded a new song that is out now, Keep Your Love Locked Deep in Your Heart. I think it will be bigger than his first. He does a fine job.

Shelley, who has appeared in all but three episodes of The Donna Reed Show since it started in 1958, became ill one Monday morning in late February. “I was a little late and jumped out of bed to go to the shower when I had this wave of feeling sick. I went back to bed for a few minutes, and then went on to the studio.

“We were sitting at the rehearsal table reading script, and when we got up to start blocking a scene, it hit again,” she continued. “It’s a kind of black feeling, They sent me home and I slept all day, and the next morning I felt fine. I worked Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, though I felt tired. I though I had a touch of flu.

“Thursday night Lou and I went to dinner, and in five minutes my cheeks started burning and my heart was pumping very fast. I had to ask him to take me home. I had a temperature of 103, and my throat was hurting and swollen. Naturally we thought it was mumps.

“On Friday I went to the doctor, and he said my throat was ulcerated. Also, that he wanted to run the tests for mono. I had it all right, and he ordered me to bed for three weeks. I was allowed up only to go to the bathroom. I was extremely weak. It was a big ordeal just to lift the telephone receiver.

“Vitamins, proper rest and diet the prescriptions for mono. Now I get to bed much earlier, and fall asleep much faster. I can rest anytime now, and sleep in as many mornings as possible. I’m still nervous and high strung, but much more relaxed in my sleeping habits.”

While Shelley was sick, Lou was over every night to talk and watch TV. He catered a dinner from the Islander and one night brought Spanish food, and a muu-muu for her to wear while she was recuperating. “I was up for 15 minutes, and back in bed for two hours, on schedule, the last week I was off work. When I got back, they tried to keep the script as light as possible. I still have trouble with steps. They make my heart pound.”

Until the series resumes shooting August 1, Shelley plans to take things easy. “I’ve met so many wonderful people, people I don’t get to see while I’m working, that I’d just like to be with them,” she says.

She doesn’t plan to do any traveling, except perhaps to the San Fernando Valley to see Annette. The lifetime friends were recently reunited for one of their famous weekend gab fests after Annette’s three-month stay in Europe, where she filmed Escapade in Florence.

So that’s how it is with Shelley, for whom life is like a song.