Miss Jeff Donnell, as she was often billed, was signed by Columbia Pictures almost immediately after her graduation from Yale Drama School. Though likeable and talented enough for leading roles, the toothy, frizzy-haired Ms. Donnell was most often seen as the heroine's best friend or as kooky comedy relief. Columbia certainly kept her busy during her ten-year stay at that studio, casting her in such "A" pictures as My Sister Eileen (1942) and In a Lonely Place (1952) and "B"s like The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) and Thief of Damascus (1952); she is particularly amusing in the latter film as Scheherezade, garrulously insisting upon telling her Arabian Nights stories to a villainous caliph whether he likes it or not. From 1954 through 1956, Jeff was married to another longtime Columbia contractee, Aldo Ray. On television, Jeff spent four years on The George Gobel Show as Gobel's wife, "Spooky Old Alice." Jeff Donnell's last regular TV work was the recurring role of Sheila Fields on the daytime soap opera General Hospital.
by Hal Erickson
biography
