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In Search of Donna Reed
Traces the life of the actress from her rural Iowa childhood to her stardom in film and television, to her later years
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
236 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2013
The author claims to search for the real Donna Reed but what ends up on the pages is a confusing mixture of whitewashed PR materials and second-hand stories. The writer is a fan and every story is filtered through his positive spin on the actress. Instead of an objective look at Reed's life, it's more of a stilted family recollection that favors certain aspects and ignores others.
The book starts out very slowly--skip the first 40 pages which try to set the scene of her Iowa upbringing by giving overly-detailed descriptions of her home town. There's little insight into the actress's upbringing, though a better author could have gleaned more life lessons from her childhood friends and relatives.
Reed's movie career makes up the next 80 pages and while pretty much every movie she made is mentioned, there are few behind-the-scenes details. Her private life is the focus, including her choice to abort a child she had with her first husband. Her second husband is alluded to as a Chicago gangster-type, but there is no explanation as to why Reed would have been attracted to him and she seems to tolerate his marital affairs and professional threats.
The best part of the book deals with her television show, with almost 40 pages covering the series in detail. It is during those years that Reed goes from being an ultra-liberal in real life to becoming a registered Republican. Then when the Vietnam War starts she transitions to being an anti-war Republican who eventually becomes a leader of liberal causes (including encouraging her sons to become draft dodgers). It would have been interesting to hear others dissect her political history, but that type of introspection never is made in this book.
Her selection of a military man as her third husband seems odd, and is never really explained, as is her moving to Tulsa near the end of her life. Then she suddenly is picked for the show Dallas, which brings an interesting end to her career that could have been fleshed-out much better by the author.
While the writer attempts to portray Reed sympathetically, I came away not liking her that much. She claimed to be a great mother yet in truth abandoned her children in order to work, often going weeks without seeing them by leaving them in the care of nannies, and often buckled to a thug second husband. After recently watching a few dozen of her sitcom episodes, I found that the show certainly wasn't as iconic or feminist as she (and the author) would have us to believe. In the end Reed comes across as an under-utilized actress who seemed a bit directionless, made odd marital choices, and was not quite the together mother we thought her to be.
The book starts out very slowly--skip the first 40 pages which try to set the scene of her Iowa upbringing by giving overly-detailed descriptions of her home town. There's little insight into the actress's upbringing, though a better author could have gleaned more life lessons from her childhood friends and relatives.
Reed's movie career makes up the next 80 pages and while pretty much every movie she made is mentioned, there are few behind-the-scenes details. Her private life is the focus, including her choice to abort a child she had with her first husband. Her second husband is alluded to as a Chicago gangster-type, but there is no explanation as to why Reed would have been attracted to him and she seems to tolerate his marital affairs and professional threats.
The best part of the book deals with her television show, with almost 40 pages covering the series in detail. It is during those years that Reed goes from being an ultra-liberal in real life to becoming a registered Republican. Then when the Vietnam War starts she transitions to being an anti-war Republican who eventually becomes a leader of liberal causes (including encouraging her sons to become draft dodgers). It would have been interesting to hear others dissect her political history, but that type of introspection never is made in this book.
Her selection of a military man as her third husband seems odd, and is never really explained, as is her moving to Tulsa near the end of her life. Then she suddenly is picked for the show Dallas, which brings an interesting end to her career that could have been fleshed-out much better by the author.
While the writer attempts to portray Reed sympathetically, I came away not liking her that much. She claimed to be a great mother yet in truth abandoned her children in order to work, often going weeks without seeing them by leaving them in the care of nannies, and often buckled to a thug second husband. After recently watching a few dozen of her sitcom episodes, I found that the show certainly wasn't as iconic or feminist as she (and the author) would have us to believe. In the end Reed comes across as an under-utilized actress who seemed a bit directionless, made odd marital choices, and was not quite the together mother we thought her to be.
December 27, 2022
Just skimmed a bit. Didn't really read enough to get interested, or perhaps I read enough to be disinterested. At any rate, I gave it up.
January 12, 2018
Not very insightful but still a decent, well researched biography. Glad I read it.
December 29, 2009
Anyone who loved watching Donna Reed in It's A Wonderful Life (which we did for the umpteenth-dozen time just before Christmas), From Here to Eternity (for which Ms. Reed won an Oscar), and The Donna Reed Show will get a lot out of this book. She was born a few years before, and not too many miles away in Iowa from, my father. Living through the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights era, and the Vietnam War, Donna Reed personified a certain Midwestern stability, and an old-fashioned set of moral values, that many people long for today. This book goes deeper--and, to be honest, not as deep as I would have liked--into what made Ms. Reed tick. She often played the dutiful wife on large screen and small, yet chafed at the sexist treatment she was subjected to by Hollywood. America changed a lot between 1921 and 1986. Donna Reed did as well. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to.
August 13, 2012
An important book about this actress and icon--what we think we know about her and what is the truth are two very different things.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews