A reliable featured player and occasional co-star, actress Jeff Donnell
was born Jean Marie Donnell in a boys' reformatory in South Windham,
Maine in 1921, the younger of schoolteacher Mildred and penologist
Howard's two daughters. She took piano and dance lessons during her
childhood in Maryland; she loved the popular "Mutt and Jeff" cartoon
strip so much that she gave herself the nickname "Jeff."
She studied at the Yale School of Drama and performed briefly in
summer stock before marrying her first husband at 19: Bill Anderson,
a drama teacher from her Boston alma mater, Leland Powers Drama
School. Together they started the Farragut Playhouse in Rye, New
Hampshire. Almost immediately a Columbia Studios talent scout
noticed her in a play there and quickly signed her.
Whisked to Los Angeles, Jeff made her first appearance in the war-era
movie Meine Schwester Ellen (1942)
while husband Bill was hired on as a dialogue director. Hardly the
chic, glamour-girl type, Jeff possessed a perky, unpretentious,
tomboyish quality that worked comfortably in unchallenging "B" escapism
--usually the breezy girlfriend or spirited bobbysoxer. Typical of her
movie load at the time were the fun but innocuous
Doughboys in Ireland (1943),
What's Buzzin', Cousin? (1943),
Nine Girls (1944),
1001 Nacht (1945),
Carolina Blues (1944), and
Eadie Was a Lady (1945). She
also enlivened a number of musical westerns that prominently featured
Ken Curtis (Festus of "Gunsmoke").
On a rare occasion, Jeff found herself in "A" pictures, most notably
the Bogart film noir classic
Ein einsamer Ort (1950), but
more often than not she played the obliging or supportive friend of the
leading lady. Unable to break away from her established "B" ranking,
she later tried a move to RKO Studios (1949) but fared no better or
worse. She did make a successful move to TV in the early 50s and was
seen in a number of comedy and dramatic parts.
Long separated from and finally divorcing her first husband in 1953
(they had one son, Michael, and an adopted daughter, Sarah Jane), she
married rising film actor Aldo Ray in 1954, but the marriage
crumbled within two years, beset by drinking problems; she also suffered
a miscarriage. She went on to marry and divorce twice more. As the 1950s
rolled on, she earned steady work on TV, bringing to life comedian
George Gobel's
often-mentioned wife Alice on the sitcom
The George Gobel Show (1954)
for four seasons. She also had the opportunity to play Gidget's mom in
a couple of the popular lightweight movies of the early 1960s --
April entdeckt Hawaii (1961)
and
April entdeckt Rom (1963).
Most daytime fans will remember Jeff's long-running stint on the soap
drama
General Hospital (1963) as
Stella Fields, the Quartermain housekeeper, which started in 1979 and
lasted until her death in 1988. Dogged by ill health in later years
(including a serious bout with Addison's disease), Jeff died peacefully
of a heart attack in her sleep at age 66.
