The Donna Reed Show - "The Geisha Girl" - 08:30 am Sunday, May 24 on WNYW Catchy Comedy

Donna Reed (Actor) .. Donna Stone

Born: January 27, 1921
Died: January 14, 1986
Birthplace: Dennison, Iowa, United States

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.

Carl Betz (Actor) .. Dr. Alex Stone

Paul Petersen (Actor) .. Jeff Stone

Born: September 23, 1945

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.

Miyoshi Umeki (Actor) .. Yo San

Douglas Dick (Actor) .. Semple

Born: November 20, 1920
Died: December 15, 2015

Aline Towne (Actor) .. Kay

Born: November 30, 1930
Died: February 09, 1996

Trivia: One of the last of the serial queens, Canadian-born Aline Towne (born Bouchard) played the female lead in no less than five chapter plays between 1950 and 1953, all for Republic Pictures. By the 1950s, however, the once so thriving genre was threatened by television, which basically offered the same kind of juvenile excitement for free; in addition, Towne was less memorable than such earlier Republic cliffhanger stars as Jungle Girl's Frances Gifford and The Leopard Woman's Linda Stirling. To compound matters, Towne's leading men were far from top caliber: Richard Webb (Invisible Monster, 1950), Ken Curtis (Don Daredevil Rides Again, 1951), George Wallace (Radar Men From the Moon, 1952), Judd Holdren (Zombies From the Stratosphere, 1952), and Harry Lauter (Trader Tom of the China Seas, 1953). In 1952, she filmed Republic's 12-episode television sci-fi Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, also starring Judd Holdren and created by serial veterans Fred C. Brannon and Franklin Afreon. A series rather than a cliffhanging serial, the project proved a distinct failure and was dumped on the unsuspecting viewing audience as a mid-summer replacement. Undeterred, Towne continued to appear in supporting roles on television and the occasional A-movie until 1970.

Sally Mansfield (Actor) .. Beth

Born: January 01, 1923
Died: January 28, 2001

Trivia: A graduate of Actors Company of Chicago and a nightclub dancer, Sally Mansfield was awarded a Paramount contract in 1951, appearing in several Martin & Lewis comedies. She became a star on the small screen, however, reportedly beating 300 other actresses for the female lead on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, a syndicated science-fiction drama starring Richard Crane. "Miss Emmy" of 1954, Mansfield went on to appear on such television shows as The Andy Griffith Show and McHale's Navy and was a regular on Bachelor Father from 1961-1962. She later did commercial voice-over work.

Ann Mccrea (Actor) .. Midge Kelsey

Born: February 25, 1931

Janet Landgard (Actor) .. Karen Holmby

Born: December 02, 1947

Darryl Richard (Actor) .. Smitty

The Donna Reed Show: The Geisha Girl

08:30 am - 09:00 am, Sunday, May 24 on WNYW Catchy Comedy (5.5)

The Geisha Girl

Season 3, Episode 22