Was Donna Reed a poor substitute for Barbara Bel Geddes

[TMC]

For those who don't know or remember, Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie) was having heart problems as far back as 1983. She left the show after the 1983-84 season to have triple bypass surgery. She had intended to retire from acting, or at least the weekly grind of a series, due to her heart problems. After the surgery, Barbara spent over a year recovering at her farm in upstate New York.

For Season 8, Donna Reed stepped in to play Miss Ellie before Barbara's return a year later (the infamous "dream season"). The criticisms that I've heard about Donna Reed is that she played Ellie more like an Eastern matriarch. In comparison, with Barbara Bel Geddes, you could believe that she grew up on a ranch. Also, Reed arguably both acted and looked terrified (like a deer in the headlights) in every scene during her short stint as Miss Ellie. She perhaps was too pretty for the role and far too boring an actress.

Supposedly, Donna Reed Reed was hired due to her good chemistry with Howard Keel. In the biography of Donna Reed, she believed that Larry Hagman (who didn't really want her; he if Miss Ellie had to be recast, wanted his real life mother, Mary Martin) sabotaged her at every turn. She said the cinematographer lit her badly on purpose.

[Steve_uk]

Yes she was, though faute de mieux I suppose she moved the story along, even though the moving of Jock's portrait from the dining room felt even more peculiar with a stranger to the cast doing it.