This first biography of Donna Reed also contains the first extended discussion of her television show. The personal richness that Reed brought to her television role has been filtered out in the caricature perpetuated by pop critics. In the media "Donna Reed" is Donna Stone distorted as a female-manque who wears pearls and high heels around the house. But Donna Reed's long hold on viewers depends on irreducible qualities that have nothing to do with this fixed image, as Fultz suggests.

He follows her development from Iowa farm girl to apprentice in Hollywood to mature juggler of the demands of family and career to antiwar activist. Drawing on Reed's letters and on interviews, Fultz looks for what was real in a very private person without discarding what is romantic in any pursuit of a public one. He shows why the rich and principled life of Donna Reed matters in this more cynical time.