Shelley Fabares, Star of ‘The Donna Reed Show’ and ‘Coach,’ Dies at 82

Shelley Fabares, the wholesome daughter on The Donna Reed Show who went on to star opposite Elvis Presley in three movies and as Craig T. Nelson’s independent wife on Coach, has died. She was 82. Fabares died Saturday in Los Angeles, her family announced. Survivors include her husband, M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell, whom she married in 1984. “To her family and friends, Shelley was a source of love, strength, laughter, and comfort,” they said in a statement. “She was a devoted wife, cherished stepmother, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, family member and loyal friend whose warmth, generosity, humor and grace made an enduring difference in the lives of everyone who knew her. She had a remarkable ability to make people feel welcomed, valued and cared for.” Related Stories On the original One Day at a Time, Fabares played against her prim, good-girl persona as Francine Webster, a nasty business rival of Bonnie Franklin‘s Ann Romano. (Her late aunt, Caesar’s Hour and The Band Wagon star Nannette Fabray, also appeared on the sitcom, playing the mother of Franklin’s character.) Fabares also portrayed the wife of doomed Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo (James Caan) on the landmark 1971 ABC telefilm Brian’s Song. On The Donna Reed Show, which aired on ABC for eight seasons, from September 1958 through March 1966, Fabares played high schooler Mary Stone opposite Reed as her mom, housewife Donna Stone; Carl Betz as her pediatrician dad, Dr. Alex Stone; and Paul Petersen as her younger brother, Jeff. When Mary left for college at the start of the sixth season, the Stones adopted a daughter, Trisha (Patty Petersen, real-life sister of Paul). Capitalizing on her national fame, Fabares — backed by Darlene Love and the Blossoms and Glen Campbell on guitar — recorded a version of “Johnny Angel,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1962. She had debuted the song on a Donna Reed episode a couple months earlier. “I literally cannot sing. So there’s a lot of overdubbing,” she admitted in a 1983 interview. “The girls in the back — ‘Could you sing a little louder please?’ It was unusual. But [The Donna Reed Show] was very successful at that time, so [the song] had a built-in audience.” During “live” performances — in “the days when they would play the record and you would lip-sync” — she recalled, “my worst experience was [when] I did a live local television show and, needless to say, the record stuck. I think I went into a coma.” Fabares starred on the ABC comedy Coach for eight seasons while earning a pair of Emmy nominations for playing Christine Armstrong, a TV newscaster and the girlfriend and then wife of Nelson’s college football coach, Hayden Fox. “Clearly, Christine is a very successful woman and firmly entrenched in her career and loves her work. And she loves this man,” she said. “It’s a difficult problem in life to find your balance. We’re all going through the same things. I have a wonderful relationship with my husband, but I’m still a career woman.” In 2015, NBC developed a Coach revival in which Nelson’s character returns to coaching and Fabares’ character is killed off, but the reboot did not emerge beyond the pilot stage. Michele Ann Marie Fabares was born in Santa Monica on Jan. 19, 1944. Her mother, Elsa, got her into modeling at age 3, and that led to TV appearances. By the time she was 9, Frank Sinatra was singing “Young at Heart” to her on an NBC special. She also appeared on a 1955 NBC adaptation of Our Town that starred Sinatra, Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint and with Rock Hudson in Never Say Goodbye (1956). In 1958, she was on the ABC series Annette, which starred lifelong friend Annette Funicello. Fabares said Reed “was not given credit for being the head of her own series, the guiding force behind the series,” she said in 1994. “She produced the series, had an enormous part in writing it and also had four children at home. Having been there, I knew the amazing strength of that woman.” During a 2011 reunion of the show’s surviving castmembers, Fabares remembered when she was feeling nervous about having to dance during a scene. Reed tried to calm her down. “Shelley, there are three things I can’t do: I can’t swim, I can’t dance, and I can’t act.” But she had to do all three for a film scene. “Oh yeah, that movie I was talking about was It’s a Wonderful Life.” After several years as Mary Stone, Fabares concentrated on the big screen and appeared in the fun-in-the-sun movies Ride the Wild Surf (1964) with Fabian and Hold On! (1966) with Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits. She then co-starred with Presley in Girl Happy (1965), Spinout (1966) — Betz played her dad in that one too — and Clambake (1967). “The first day of shooting [Girl Happy], I’m on the set. Something was happening, and I didn’t know what it was,” she said. “And I looked over, and it was Elvis. He was walking in. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just walking in. The presence that this man had … you couldn’t talk. Nobody did anything. You just sort of stopped. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my God. It’s Elvis Presley. I’m never going to be able to open my mouth around him.’ ” In the late 1960s, during a time of protest and rebellion, her good-girl appeal fell out of sync with the cultural zeitgeist. It wasn’t until Brian’s Song that she regained her career momentum. Buoyed by that role, Fabares rebounded to work on such popular series as The Brian Keith Show, The Practice with Danny Thomas and Highcliffe Manor. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, she starred on One Day at a Time, then showed a saucier dimension as the tart-tongued Eleanor Major on the syndicated soap opera spoof Forever Fernwood. Fabares also had guest-starring roles on Mannix; Love, American Style; Daniel Boone; McCloud; Mork & Mindy; and Hello, Larry (as McLean Stevenson’s ex-wife). She had a liver transplant in October 2000 after spending nearly two years on the waiting list to receive one. In 1984, she married Farrell at Aunt Nanette’s Pacific Palisades home. The two had first met in 1970 when she was a guest star on Farrell’s series The Interns, but it was not until they reunited 12 years later during a CBS press tour that they started to date. (Earlier, Fabares had been married to record producer Lou Adler.) Farrell, known to be a serious human rights activist, said his wife made him a bit more light-hearted. “People talk about how much more fun I am,” he said in 1991. “Shelley has allowed people to understand I’m not this unapproachable doomsayer.” Added Fabares: “Nothing in Mike’s life is casual. He’s very serious. Mike grounds me, and I think I pull him out sometimes. It’s a nice mix.” Survivors also include her daughter, Erin. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day