Donna Reed’s career ran the full spectrum from her humble beginnings opposite Mickey Rooney in The Courtship of Andy Hardy  to her popularity as a pin-up girl during World War II to her Academy Award-winning performance as prostitute Lorene Burke in 1953’s From Here to Eternity.

Network executives must have been focusing on her role as Mary Bailey in the beloved Frank Capra holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life  when they offered her the role of perfect housewife Donna Stone on a new ABC sitcom (unless they just dug her as the From Here to Eternity  hooker). Donna vacuumed and washed dishes in pearls and high heels for eight seasons in The Donna Reed Show. Her character is still perceived as the model for the All-American subservient homemaker.

When actress Barbara Bel Geddes decided to step down as Ewing family matriarch “Miss Ellie” on the popular nighttime drama Dallas, Donna was recruited to fill the part. After one season Bel Geddes returned and Donna was unceremoniously fired. She sued the production company for breach of contract and settled out-of-court for over a million dollars. Shortly after, Donna was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and passed away just shy of her 65th birthday in 1986.

Donna experienced an unusual twist of fate early in her personal life. In 1945, Donna flew to Mexico to obtain a divorce from her first husband, Hollywood make-up man Bill Tuttle. Returning home, Donna boarded a plane in El Paso, Texas headed for Los Angeles. Just before take off, Donna was bumped from the flight to make room for a military officer. On its approach to Burbank’s Lockheed Air Terminal, the plane crashed, killing everyone on board.

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Hungarian-born Michael Curtiz was one of the most prolific directors that ever worked in Hollywood. He directed over one hundred films beginning with The Third Degree in 1926, just after his arrival in America. (He directed nearly a hundred films in his native Hungary).

As the 20s became the 30s, Michael was cranking out five and six pictures a year for Warner Brothers, helping the studio to become one of Hollywood’s most successful. Michael was a perfectionist and expected the same level of output from his actors. He was prone to berate and insult his cast and crew, noting that “acting is fifty percent a bag of tricks”.  Because of this, a great many actors refused to work with him. He had a tumultuous working relationship with Errol Flynn. The pair teamed up for twelve films, including The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood,  until Flynn was finally fed up with Michael’s temperament and another director was chosen for 1948’s Adventures of Don Juan.

Michael had a better relationship with Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, directing the former eight times including the classic Casablanca. He evoked great results from Bogart and Cagney in the quintessential gangster film Angels with Dirty Faces and Cagney’s Oscar-winning tour de force Yankee Doodle Dandy. Actress Fay Wray, however, once remarked that Michael was just like a piece of machinery; an extension of the camera crane. His relationship with the great Bette Davis was so volatile that he once called her a “no good sexless son of a bitch” in the middle of a movie set. Michael’s films crossed genres and he was just as comfortable directing a drama as he was a musical or horror movie. No matter what the subject, Michael was a workaholic. He never broke for meals and referred to those who did as “lunch bums”.

Although it was never a hindrance, foreign-born Michael’s poor grasp of English was notorious. A prop man on the set of Casablanca  was baffled by Michael’s request for “poodles”. Over and over, he demanded “poodles” be scattered about the set. He soon realized Michael actually wanted “puddles” during a rain scene. During the filming of 1936’s Charge of The Light Brigade, a scene called for a stampede of riderless horses. When he was ready, Michael announced to “bring on the empty horses”.

In the early 1950s, Michael’s association with Warner Brothers waned and he began freelancing for rival studios. He directed King Creole (his only teaming with Elvis Presley) and the holiday favorite White Christmas for Paramount. His last film, 1961’s The Comancheros  with John Wayne, was released six months before Michael lost his battle with cancer at age 75.

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Nine-year old June Preisser, along with her sister Cherry, performed as child acrobats from their hometown of New Orleans to New York City, to the famous music halls of Paris, Berlin and London. They even were given an audience with King George of England. Their act caught the interest of show-biz impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and they went to work in the famous Ziegfeld Follies in the late 1930s.

Cherry married and retired from the act leaving June to continue as a solo. June was soon signed to a contract with MGM and was cast as Judy Garland‘s rival for Mickey Rooney’s affections in the musicals Babes in Arms in 1939 and Strike Up the Band in 1940. She appeared as essentially the same character in several of Rooney’s popular Andy Hardy pictures. After her marriage at 22 and the birth of her son, MGM expressed little interest in further promotion of her career. June signed on with Monogram Pictures, a studio known for their low-budget pictures. She made eight films in the “Teen Ager” musical series playing peppy high-schooler Dodie Rogers, despite being in her middle 20s.

June called it a career in 1948 following her appearance in a stage production of Annie Get Your Gun. After a bitter divorce, she opened a chain of dance schools in Los Angeles.  Her dance school endeavor tanked and she moved to Florida with her grown son.

June’s name surfaced in the news in 1984, when it was reported that she and her son had died in a car accident during a severe Florida rainstorm. June was 63.

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