Jeff Donnell

'Jean Marie As a child, she adopted the nickname "Jeff" after the character in her favorite comic strip, Mutt and Jeff.

She became a fixture at Columbia, working steadily in comedies, mysteries, westerns, and musicals for five years, and then off and on at the studio from 1950 to 1972. During the 1940s she was typically the house tomboy, a plain-speaking sidekick for the glamorous ingenue, and developed a flair for comedy. Columbia did give Donnell the glamour treatment later (in the 1946 Boston Blackie mystery The Phantom Thief, in which she played a troubled heiress), but she never shook the sidekick image. When her Columbia contract ran out, she freelanced at other studios, mostly in low-budget action pictures. She returned to Columbia in 1950. She had met Lucille Ball on the set of the 1948 RKO Radio Pictures production Easy Living; Ball remembered Donnell and recruited her to play her sidekick in The Fuller Brush Girl (1950).

Donnell continued to play character roles in motion pictures and television; for three seasons, she portrayed George Gobel's wife, Alice, in The George Gobel Show (1954–1957) on NBC-TV. Many of her assignments were for Columbia (notably as Gidget's mother Dorothy Lawrence in Gidget Goes Hawaiian and Gidget Goes to Rome) Donnell had her only children with him, namely Michael Phineas—affectionately dubbed Mickey Finn—in 1942 and Sarah Jane (aka Sally ), whom the couple adopted in the fall of 1947. Anderson and Donnell divorced in 1952.

Next came actor Aldo Ray, whom Donnell married in 1954 and divorced in 1957. Her third marriage, to advertising executive John Bricker, began on December 1, 1958 and concluded in an uncontested divorce decree issued on March 19, 1963, with Donnell reporting that Bricker had, among other things, publicly belittled both herself and her adopted daughter.

Donnell's fourth and final marriage, to Radcliffe (aka Rod) Bealey, lasted all of three months, comprising roughly the spring of 1970. Commencing in March of that year with a guest list confined to family and close friends, the marriage was officially dissolved in June.

Death On April 11, 1988, at age 66, Donnell died of a heart attack at her home in Hollywood. As for her then-still-recurring role on General Hospital, a contemporaneous report by syndicated soaps pundit Lynda Hirsch states that Donnell was being replaced by another actress in that season's remaining few episodes, and would then be written out of the show altogether, the onscreen rationale consisting of a note left with her character's employers, explaining that she had to leave to care for an ailing relative.

CreditsMy Sister Eileen (1942) - Helen LoomisThe Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) - Winnie SladeA Night to Remember (1942) - Anne Stafford CarstairsWhat's Buzzin', Cousin? (1943) - Billie (uncredited)Doughboys in Ireland (1943) - Molly CallahanThere's Something About a Soldier (1943) - Jean BurtonNine Girls (1944) - 'Butch' HendricksOnce Upon a Time (1944) - Girl from Brooklyn (uncredited)Stars on Parade (1944) - Mary BrooksShe's a Soldier Too (1944) - Mary Fleming (uncredited)Sensations of 1945 (1944) - Young Girl (uncredited)Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944) - USO Hostess (uncredited)Three Is a Family (1944) - Hazel WhittakerDancing in Manhattan (1944) - Julie ConnorsCarolina Blues (1944) - Charlotte BartonEadie Was a Lady (1945) - Pamela 'Pepper' ParkerThe Power of the Whistler (1945) - FrancieA Thousand and One Nights (1945) - Harem Girl (uncredited)Over 21 (1945) - Jan LuptonSong of the Prairie (1945) - Penelope 'Penny' StevensTars and Spars (1946) - Penny McDougalThrow a Saddle on a Star (1946) - Judy LaneNight Editor (1946) - Martha CochraneThe Phantom Thief (1946) - Anne Parks DuncanThat Texas Jamboree (1946) - Jean WarrenThe Unknown (1946, One of the "I Love A Mystery" movies) - Nina ArnoldCowboy Blues (1946) - Susan NelsonSinging on the Trail (1946) - Cindy BrownIt's Great to Be Young (1946) - Georgia JohnsonMr. District Attorney (1947) - Miss MillerRoughshod (1949) - Elaine WyattStagecoach Kid (1949) - Jessie ArnoldOutcasts of the Trail (1949) - Vinnie WhitePost Office Investigator (1949) - April ShaughnessyEasy Living (1949) - Penny McCarrIn a Lonely Place (1950) - Sylvia NicolaiHoedown (1950) - Vera WrightBig Timber (1950) - SallyThe Fuller Brush Girl (1950) - Jane BixbyRedwood Forest Trail (1950) - Julie WestcottWalk Softly, Stranger (1950) - GwenThree Guys Named Mike (1951) - Alice RaymendThe First Time (1952) - Donna GilbertThief of Damascus (1952) - SheherazadeSkirts Ahoy! (1952) - Lt. GiffBecause You're Mine (1952) - Patty WareThe Blue Gardenia (1953) - Sally EllisSo This Is Love (1953) - Henrietta Van DykeFlight Nurse (1953) - Lt. Ann PhillipsMassacre Canyon (1954) - CoraMagnificent Roughnecks (1956) - JulieMr. Adams and Eve (1957, Episode: "You Can't Go Home Again") - AdeleThe Guns of Fort Petticoat (1957) - Mary WhellerDestination 60,000 (1957) - Ruth BuckleySweet Smell of Success (1957) - SallyMy Man Godfrey (1957) - MollyGidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) - Dorothy LawrenceForce of Impulse (1961) - Louise ReesePerry Mason (1962–1964, TV series) - Rose CarolThe Iron Maiden (1963; released in the U.S. as Swinging Maiden) - Miriam FisherGidget Goes to Rome (1963) - Mrs. LawrenceThe Addams Family (1966, TV series) - Eleanor DigbyThe Comic (1969) - NurseTora! Tora! Tora! (1970) - Cornelia Fort, a flying instructorThe Jimmy Stewart Show (1971, TV series) - Agatha DwigginsStand Up and Be Counted (1972) - RuthAdam-12 (1973, TV Series) - Mrs James NelsonBarnaby Jones (1973, Episode: "Sunday: Doomsday") - Janet GossettThe Amazing Spider-Man (1977, TV series) - May ParkerThe Bob Newhart Show (1978, TV series) - Clara Hackler ("The Little Woman")General Hospital'' (1979–1988, in the TV soap opera) - Stella Fields (final appearance)