Trivia: Reed was elected beauty queen of her high school and Campus Queen of her college. The latter honor resulted in her photo making the L.A. papers, and as a result she was invited to take a screen test with MGM, which signed her in 1941. She played supporting roles in a number of minor films (at first being billed as "Donna Adams"), then in the mid '40s she began getting leads; with rare exceptions, she portrayed sincere, wholesome types and loving wives and girlfriends. She went against type playing a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1953), for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Rarely getting rewarding roles, she retired from the screen in 1958 to star in the TV series "The Donna Reed Show," which was a great success and remained on the air through 1966. After 1960 she appeared in only one more film. In the mid '80s she emerged from retirement to star in "Dallas;" Barbara Bel Geddes returned to the show in 1985, and Reed won a $1 million settlement for a breach of contract suit against the show's producers. She died of cancer several months later.

Trivia: The niece of musical comedy luminary Nanette Fabray, American actress Shelley Fabares was in show business almost as soon as she could walk. She was a model for children's fashions at age 3, a bit actress in the film The Bandit Queen at age 7, a peripheral character on the Annie Oakley TV series at 8, and Frank Sinatra's dance partner on a 1953 TV special. After doing the TV-anthology route from ages 10 through 13, Fabares was cast at age 14 as Donna Reed's daughter on The Donna Reed Show, a part she would virtually grow up in. Before the series' cancellation in 1966, Fabares had become a top recording artist, selling a million copies of "Johnny Angel" before quitting singing cold because she felt she had no talent in that endeavor. Except for co-starring stints in three Elvis Presley musicals, Fabares' employment outside Donna Reed was virtually nil, and from 1968 through 1970 she barely worked at all. She filmed six TV pilots before 1971, but none sold. Things began picking up in 1972 when she was signed for a Brian Keith series set in Hawaii, The Little People. This led to guest TV spots until the next sitcom hitch in 1977's The Practice, in which Fabares played Danny Thomas' daughter-in-law. Highcliffe Manor, a muddled TV satire of Gothic melodramas, followed in 1979, but lasted a scant four weeks. By this time, Fabares' characterizations were of the "snooty shrew" category, and in this capacity she was shown to good advantage as Bonnie Franklin's business partner on One Day at a Time in 1981. Off-camera, Fabares was very active in the prosocial and ecological activities of her new husband, former MASH star Mike Farrell--a far cry from her on-camera haughtiness and self-involvement. More recently, Shelley Fabares' acting career is alive and prospering via her continuing role as Craig T. Nelson's lady love, sportscaster Christine Armstrong, on the Emmy-winning sitcom Coach.

Trivia: American actor Paul Petersen was a child actor who appeared on television and in a couple of feature films during the '50s; he is best remembered for playing teenager Jeff Stone on The Donna Reed Show where he literally grew up. While there, Petersen had a brief side-career as a popular singer, making his recording debut in early 1962 with the novelty song "She Can't Find Her Keys," which originally aired as a dream sequence on the show. Other hits followed, including his Top Ten single "My Dad," which he also sang on the television show. Eventually Petersen left the show and began playing leads in a few '60s feature films. Since then, Petersen has become a writer of spy novels and has made only infrequent forays into film.

Trivia: Roberta Shore was a busy child actor on television and, to a lesser degree, in movies during the 1950s and early '60s. Born Roberta Jymme Schourup in Monterey Park, CA, in 1943, she discovered early on that she was a natural singer and performer, and by age 10 was appearing at local event in San Gabriel, where she was raised, and the surrounding area. Billed variously as Jymme Shore and Roberta Shore, she passed through Tex Williams' television show and became a regular performer on The Pinky Lee Show at age 11. The following year, she was hired by Walt Disney Studios to play the foil to Annette Funicello in some of the filmed entertainments shown on The Mickey Mouse Club (although she was never a Mouseketeer, due in large part to her being considered too tall). She subsequently played in The Shaggy Dog as Funicello's rival for Tim Considine, in addition to singing the movie's theme song. Shore was heavily involved with the Disney organization for the next few years, doing voice work in animated films and recording for the Disneyland label. Shore also turned up in Father Knows Best as a girlfriend of older daughter Betty Anderson (Elinor Donahue), and played the rambunctious Hank (real name Henrietta) in The Bob Cummings Show (1961-1962), in addition to showing up in early '60s episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie And Harriet, as one of Ricky Nelson's girlfriends. Shore could also be seen in supporting roles in such feature films as A Summer Place and Blue Denim. In 1962, Shore was signed to play Betsy Garth, the daughter of Judge Henry Garth, in the 90-minute weekly western series The Virginian. She was 19 when the series went into production, but Betsy Garth was initially identified as a 15 year old (she celebrates her 15th birthday in the first episode), which, incidentally, takes place sometime in 1890 (specifically identified in episode two, which was focused on her character and gave Shore a lot to do dramatically). After the first season, however, the producers quietly advanced Betsy Garth's age, also giving her a love interest that audiences could accept in the person of new cast member Randy Boone, an actor/singer with whom she later recorded an album, in addition to singing with, in character, on the show. The series was a success, and Shore had a seven-year contract with the producers, and her future on network television seemed assured. But her religious background -- she was from a devout Mormon family -- was to take her out of The Virginian and performing earlier than most onlookers would have expected. Marriage and a family were always in the plan for her, sooner rather than later, and she decided during third season, when she was 21, that she was going to marry actor Ron Frederickson -- who was also a Mormon -- and leave the show. There was an episode written for the early part of the fourth season, entitled "The Awakening," in which Betsy Garth married a character played by Glenn Corbett and left the Shiloh Ranch, ending her tenure on the series. The producers also suspended Shore for the three years remaining on her contract, which had no actual effect on her, as she had walked away from acting to start and raise a family, which she did. Shore subsequently moved to Salt Lake City and, apart from an appearance in one movie in the 1970s and work as a disc jockey, maintained a private life for the next several decades. In 2003, she suddenly re-emerged in one corner of the performing world when she was cast in Gary Rogers' Book of Mormon film, along with her husband. In 2009, Shore and series star James Drury both did new on-camera interviews about The Virginian for the DVD release of the series' complete first season.