TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

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INDIANA «498 I Please mail me FREE Style Book forStout Women, i (45), Slate s-63 ■ Mom, and Carl Betz isn't the Ail-American Daddy, either. So help me, if we had to do that type of TV mother and father every week, I'd go off my rocker. Our stories do not revolve only around the kids." Ice and fire Moreover, Donna today is just about the only woman TV star who has survived "all the perils of the rating wars," without compromise in her standards or her beliefs. "Let's not kid ourselves," one Hollywood executive said. "Donna is no prettier, no more talented than the other girls. But what she had was — and this is an old-fashioned word for an oldfashioned virtue — character. And besides, she does have a quiet kind of sex: All ice and fire." There is also the fact, as her husband is aware, that Donna is a rampant perfectionist, and "it's no fun to be a perfectionist." Donna's perfectionism, the toughtalking, wheeling-and-dealing producer admits, can be a drag at times. "There are days when nothing is ever quite right," says Tony, grinning wryly. "No matter how good the show is or how high the ratings have been the week before, Donna suffers; the good should have been even better. "Why is she so critical of herself? Well, she's essentially a pretty shy person— perhaps more than anyone except those really close to her are aware. She's sure that, no matter what anyone tells her, she's not very good. Donna could win five more Oscars in a row and she still wouldn't be convinced of her value as an actress. "Sometimes she's like that at home, too. She's curiously reluctant to get on the tennis court with the good players, or swim in other people's pools, because while she does both of these things better than average, she doesn't think so. She's wrong, of course, but you try to change her opinion of Donna Reed; I can't. "And though she may not blow her top on the show very often, she'll sneak off the set when things are going wrong and get me on the phone and bang, bang, bang! But that's my Donna, my doll," Tony laughed. "It's part of the whole thing that makes her tick, makes her so very good at whatever she does." And Donna? "Well," says The Tiger, "I couldn't have done without Tony as the producer of the series. Without him there'd be nothing, except me in a sanitarium." Yet for all her "whims of iron," Donna is still a warm, sensitive human being who is as concerned about the youngsters in her show almost as much as she is about her own family. In her own serene and humorous way, Donna demonstrates constantly her belief that one should "never let the business of acting interfere with the business of living." "I've been in Hollywood for . . . well, quite a while," Donna once explained. "And all I ever had to do was to look around me and see the tormented, unhappy women in this business. Perhaps I was just a wide-eyed kid from an Iowa farm, but I saw right from the start that the one thing I didn't need was stardom and unhappiness. All too often, the two seem to go together. Somehow, you can't be both 'star' and woman, not and still be what you really have to be — a whole person. "Please don't think I'm condemning other actresses. I'm not. It's just that this unhappiness seems to pervade the Hollywood atmosphere, and sometimes I think it can be pretty shattering. And yet, you don't have to fall into all the traps, although women in this business keep doing it over and over, so it must be hard to avoid. I've seen it happen. And then that's when I pinch myself. That's when I tell myself, 'Donna, vou've been a pretty lucky person, all in all.' " There have been rumors lately, that Donna is "tired" and would like to retire from her series at the end of this, her fifth season. There were rumors she was "tired" last year, too. Once, following a Hollywood party about that time. William Dozier, West Coast production head for Screen Gems, approached his Cancep ''""■"■^iim//, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY old friend Donna and said, all sympathy, "I know how terribly tired you are. May I carry you out to your car?" Donna, to her credit, completely broke up. "But," says Donna now, "I'm not ready to say when I'll quit. There's been no decision as yet. But there's a pretty good chance I will be back. Anyway, I do know that I've been sort of — call it 'tapering off': Doing fewer entire shows, and letting the others do a little more. I must say, though," Donna laughed, "tapering off the show is like tapering off smoking or drinking. In fact, it's harder. I don't know why, but it is." And what would The Tiger do with herself if she were to retire? "Oh," she said jokingly, "do such exciting things as go to more P.T.A. meetings, help the kids with their homework and meet oftener with their teachers. I want to dress up a little more at night — wear some of my fancy clothes. Lately, I seem to have forgotten how to do it. Why, I get dizzy just climbing into high heels! "Honestly, though," Donna went on, "I'd like to join my husband in producing the kind of pictures families can see, parents can take their children to. There are so few of them around these days. Almost nobody except Walt Disney seems to be making pictures that aren't sick, sick, sick, or boiling over with sex." All this is as yet in the future. Right