Donna Reed

The performing arts center was formerly an opera house built in 1914, and later rennovated into the Ritz Movie Theater where Donna Reed first fell in love with movies. Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. The non-profit organization grants scholarships for performing arts students, runs an annual festival of performing arts workshops, and operates The Donna Reed Center for the Performing Arts. Some Harry Potter fans have suggested Routledge for the role of Dolores Umbridge for the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2006 or 2007). The Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts was organized after her death in 1986. In the United States, in addition to her Tony Award-winning role in Darling of the Day, she appeared in a number of short-lived musicals including the legendary 1976 flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She died at age 64 in Beverly Hills, California from pancreatic cancer and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac.

She sued the show's production company and received an undisclosed seven-figure settlement. A recent BBC radio dramatisation of Carole Hayman's "Ladies of Letters" sees Patricia playing pensioner Vera Small in a two-hander with Prunella Scales (as Irene Spencer), a gentle, quintessentially British comedy where the two ladies exchange letters (more recently e-mails) full of acerbic comment and ironic asides. When Bel Geddes was well enough to return to the role, Reed was fired. She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. In her later years she temporarily replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie in the television series Dallas in the 1984-1985 season. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. She won an Academy Award for playing a prostitute in From Here to Eternity. It was in 1990 that she first played the comic role of Hyacinth Bucket, an originally working-class woman with social pretensions (for example, she insists on pronouncing her surname "Bouquet").

Born Donna Belle Mullenger, Reed is probably best remembered for her roles as the wholesome housewife Donna Stone on American television's The Donna Reed Show and as Mary Bailey in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Her numerous television appearances, including roles in Coronation Street and several BBC drama serials, failed to make her a household name until the 1980s, when she appeared, amongst other things, in Victoria Wood's comedy series, and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of short plays. Donna Reed (January 27, 1921 - January 14, 1986) was an American actress. Around this time, she also acted alongside Sidney Poitier in the film To Sir, With Love. Her appearance in Darling of the Day won her a Tony Award in 1968 (she shared the honor that year with Leslie Uggams, who also won for Hallelujah, Baby!). She appeared in many stage productions, including musicals, and made her Broadway debut in 1966.

She was born at Birkenhead in Cheshire, and educated at the University of Liverpool, going on to act at the Liverpool Playhouse. She went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic's theatre school. Patricia Routledge (born 17 February 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances.