--- title: What President Trump Got Wrong About Donna Reed description: Like many women in a “man’s” business, Donna Reed had to learn how to deal with big egos and small minds, writes Shelley Fabares. canonical: https://time.com/5833899/trump-donna-reed/ author: Shelley Fabares article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-05-07T23:05:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T18:26:25.000Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What President Trump Got Wrong About Donna Reed og:description: Like many women in a “man’s” business, Donna Reed had to learn how to deal with big egos and small minds og:url: https://time.com/5833899/trump-donna-reed/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt742469f54552cfa5/698a0dcc4ee2622cb1317733/reed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Donna Reed og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What President Trump Got Wrong About Donna Reed twitter:description: Like many women in a “man’s” business, Donna Reed had to learn how to deal with big egos and small minds twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt742469f54552cfa5/698a0dcc4ee2622cb1317733/reed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Got Donna Reed All Wrong. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Shelley Fabares](https://time.com/author/shelley-fabares/) ## Shelley Fabares Updated: Dec 12, 2023 6:26 PM UTCPublished: May 7, 2020 11:05 PM UTC  Donna Reed poses with her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in "From Here to Eternity" in Los Angele on March 25, 1954. Donna Reed poses with her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in "From Here to Eternity" in Los Angele on March 25, 1954. Getty Images by [Shelley Fabares](https://time.com/author/shelley-fabares/) ## Shelley Fabares Updated: Dec 12, 2023 6:26 PM UTCPublished: May 7, 2020 11:05 PM UTC By now, President Donald Trump is well [known](https://time.com/5496352/donald-trump-foreign-leaders-script/) for going off-script — and for [demonstrating](https://time.com/5496352/donald-trump-foreign-leaders-script/) that when he blurts out whatever pops into his mind he often gets things wrong. It happened again on Monday, when, in an interview with the [New York _Post_](https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/trump-says-coronavirus-briefings-will-return-blasts-cbs-news/), he tried to score a point against two fine reporters, CBS News’ Weijia Jiang and Paula Reid, because they’ve had the audacity to ask pertinent questions. Calling them “angry” and dismissing “the attitude of these people,” he reached into that dark place of his for a way to put them down. “It wasn’t Donna Reed, I can tell you that,” he said. When I heard that, I laughed out loud. Talk about the things he doesn’t know. Donna Reed would have scared the living… well, you know. Though known for the sweetness of her roles in _It’s a Wonderful Life_ and as the archetypal 1950s and ‘60s housewife and mother on _The Donna Reed Show_—on which I played her daughter—the real Donna Reed was also a great, savvy, brilliant woman who was as good at calling out fakes as she was at standing up to injustice. Not only a fabulous, award-winning actress, she was a tough-minded, very successful producer and a proud Republican who fought nuclear power, actively opposed the war in Vietnam, campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 election, and was one of the [founders](https://books.google.com/books?id=jEiRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT71&lpg=PT71&dq=donna+reed+founder+Another+Mother+for+Peace&source=bl&ots=bmNHoHA4Wi&sig=ACfU3U3uE86t0g2rlejpARYX6DEOZjq-UQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuk-KT9KHpAhWmlXIEHXosBVgQ6AEwCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=donna%20reed%20founder%20Another%20Mother%20for%20Peace&f=false) of Another Mother for Peace. If Donna could ask Mr. Trump a question today, I guarantee it would be one he’d try to dodge by calling her “angry” and a “nasty woman.” Like many women in a “man’s” business, Donna had to learn how to deal with big egos and small minds. When I, as a teenager, balked at doing a scene that frightened me, she’d walk me around the set and tell me stories of her life, showing me how to confront my fears and move forward in spite of them. Because, she said, intelligence and talent in a woman can be both an asset and a threat to those in the seats of power. In her era—and obviously in some throwback places like today’s White House—one had to watch and listen carefully before daring to step into the arena and present oneself as an equal. Doing _From Here to Eternity_, for example, was a lesson she shared with me. Donna knew she was not the director’s first choice for the extraordinary role that she landed. That was a problem, but one she could live with since, after all, it was now hers to do. But as the filming progressed, she saw that there were shots of her character—close-ups and matching shots—that weren’t being done. The director, she realized, was minimizing the impact of her character by lessening her coverage. What to do? Should she do nothing and allow this wonderful character to become incidental? Should she say something and put the director on the defensive? Rather than make a scene, embarrass the director and become a “problem,” she began to make a careful list of all the shots that should have been done but had not been. When they got close to the moment when shooting in that set was to wrap, she went to the head of the studio, the infamous Harry Cohn, told him what was being done and presented the list of missed shots. Was she dismissed as “angry” or a “nasty woman”? The shots turned up on the next day’s call sheet and all were completed. The result: an Academy Award. Maybe, for Ms. Jiang and Ms. Reid, a Pulitzer? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5833899/trump-donna-reed/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5833899/trump-donna-reed/"},"headline":"President Trump Got Donna Reed All Wrong. 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