The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1942-02-27
. HARRISON IN
HOLLYWOOD.
BY PAUL HARRISON
NEA Service Staff CORRESPONDENT

Hollywood-I've been hearing
about you" I said to Donna Reed.
You seem TO be a remarkable
story"
why, no. she said, looking a
little startled and probably Won
dering whether the press agents
had dreamed UP a glamorous his
tory for her. You see, with me,
everything has happened pretty
simply. L"
That's just the point I insist
ed. And I still think SO. Here is
the living, prospecting refutation of
all the legends, foiblfs, angles and
traditions about breaking into Hol-
lyWood and making good.
In the first place, she never
dreamed Of becoming an actress.
Back on the farm near Denison,
Ia, Donna Mullenger never dan
gled her pigtails from the window
of the hayloft and spouted Juliet's
lines to a barnyard audience. Her
idea of a career was to become a
private secretary in big Office
building and maybe marry the
Fright young assistant manager.
WENT WEST
If Miss Mullenger had wanted to
crash the movies she never would
have come to Hollywood, because
everyone knows the studios watch
only Broadway and the little thea
tiers and never pay any attention
TO talent already here. Miss: Null
lenger came here to attend City Col
lege because she could live econom-
ically with an aunt.
After couple. of years, being a
curvesome coed with arresting
dark blue eyes. she was chosen
Campus Queen. Her picture got
into the local papers and most Of
the studios asked if she wanted a
screen test. Miss Mullenger; who
must have read somewhere about
the brief movie careers of campus
queens, said no. A man from a
talent agency offered to represent
her if she ever wanted TO become
an actress. 1t didn't cost anything,
SO she signed.
After that she gambled couple
Of months in brushhing up on rudi-
mentary dramatics, and finally she
telephored the agency she was
ready for screen test. They went
out to Metro, and she went
through some scenes from. 1.-THE
World We Make" Miss Mullen
ger wasn't especially nervous be-
cause she knew of a very good
secretarial job she could get the
next Monday
Instead, she got a movie con-
tract. 1t was as simple as that.
Before they could even decide to
change her name from Mullenger
to Reed, she was working in pic
ture called The Getaway" Had
the leading feminine role, too.
DAZED DONNA
By this time she was nervous,
all right. Or dazed, really. Miss
Reed declares that she can't re-
member anything about acting in
that picture, or in The Shadow Of
the Thin Man. or even in 1.-THE
Bugle Sounds" Along about the
time she was cast in 1.-THE Mickey"
and then in THE Romance of
Andy Hardy" she regained con-
seriousness.
She now is working in one Of
those DR.. Kildare yarns, and that
makes six pictures in IL months,
unprecedented for newcomer.
After the preview Of the Hardy
picture, in which she really has
some acting to Go in the split
personality Of ugly duckIing and
glamor deb, the studio knew it
really had something in this ear
nest, soft-spoken youngster. A few
days ago she was being tested and
sought for three ictures at once,
but Donna Reed doesn't see how
such an uneyentful sequence of
experiences could make much of
story.