Donna Hamilton Shor

Donna Hamilton Shor, a Hollywood starlet during the golden age of movies – who later became a well-known journalist, businesswoman, hostess and philanthropist – died April 9 in Alexandria. She was 101.

Donna Hamilton was born in Los Angeles on July 19, 1924 to Samuel White Hamilton and Lillian Van R. D’Sugrue. She attended high school in Los Angeles and then the University of Southern California. During her time at USC, Donna became a starlet at Twentieth-Century Fox after being spotted by an entertainment industry executive.

Reportedly, when Donna was signed by Twentieth-Century Fox, they only had one contract available for a starlet and Donna was chosen over Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was later also signed. The two actresses shared a dressing room for a time. Donna’s daughter, Donnali Fifield, said that her mother was also a protégée of legendary Hollywood star Joan Crawford.

Donna and Monroe would later do a publicity photo shoot together. The two star lets were assigned to be photographed for a souvenir postcard for the national Post masters Convention in Los Angeles, from Oct. 12 to Oct. 16, 1947. They were shown to be supposedly greeting new arrivals coming into the airport for the convention.

Donna performed under her maiden name of Donna Hamilton. As a starlet, she usually had uncredited roles, but she had speaking lines in “Gentleman’s Agreement,” a film on antisemitism with Gregory Peck; “Forever Amber” with Linda Darnell; and “House of Strangers” with Edward G. Robinson and Richard Conte. Donna appeared as a dancer in “Mother Wore Tights,” a 1947 20th Century Fox musical about a vaudeville family that starred Betty Grable, Dan Dailey and Mona Freeman.

Donna played an asylum patient in Olivia de Haviland’s “Snake Pit,” a saloon girl in “My Darling Clementine,” and a milkmaid in “The Kid from Brooklyn” with Danny Kaye, among other films. Many of these movies are now streaming online. Donna had the lead female role in the Western “Gunmen of Abilene,” opposite Allan “Rocky” Lane and his horse, Black Jack. Lane later provided the voice for the talking horse on the iconic “Mister Ed” TV show. “Gunmen of Abilene” was released in 1950 by Republic Pictures and is available now on YouTube.

While Donna’s Holly wood career was gaining momentum, her life took another turn when she met William Fifield, a writer, at a party. Fifield was impressed that the beautiful starlet had read one of his articles, “Spain: Dead on Its Feet” (Harper’s Magazine, May 1948). Donna would later quit Hollywood to marry Fifield.

They were married by Fifield’s father, a Congregationalist minister, L. Wendell Fifield. The elder Fifield had a national radio program and played a spiritual role in the signing of Jackie Robinson to Major League Baseball, breaking the color barrier. Reverend Fifield’s friend Branch Rickey, the president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, made the decision to hire Robinson in the minister’s presence.

The newlyweds left for Europe, moving there because it was cheaper than the United States, which would allow Fifield to write full time. They lived for a few years in Vorarlberg, a region in the Austrian Alps. They then went to London for the birth of their twin children, Brian and Donnali, in December 1954.

The family lived in various locations in France for a number of years as Fifield pursued his writing career. While in France, Donna began working as a journalist, as a freelance feature writer for The International Herald Tribune, mainly doing articles on travel and food.

Donna and William Fifield eventually separated, then divorced, with Donna and the children moving to Paris for a couple of years. She became the publisher and editor of an English-language newspaper, The Paris Gazette. The family believes Donna is the first American to own and run a paper in Paris.

The humorist Art Buchwald was one of the writers at The Paris Gazette. He later became a columnist for the Washington Post and remained a lifelong friend as Donna and her children later also moved to Washington, D.C. when Donna married Franc Shor, who was associate editor of the National Geographic, when Brian and Donnali were about 10 years old. The Shors were married for a few years before divorcing. During her early years in the D.C. area, Donna became increasingly active in nonprofit work, becoming executive director of the Committee of Responsibility, a nonprofit that helped war-injured Vietnamese children, many of whom had been napalmed during the Vietnam War. Donna’s peace activism was informed by her Quaker beliefs.

During the family’s early years in Washington, Donna became known for her New Year’s Day party, with a large buffet, often for more than 200 people. She cooked the food herself and New York Times restaurant critic Craig Claiborne wrote about her recipes. Donna also appeared in the magazine Cuisine.

In 1973, Donna started a mailing company, Mercury Mailing – later renamed Mercury Mailers – after noticing that many nonprofits didn’t have adequate mailing services. She was one of the first women to own a direct mailing firm.

During the ensuing years, the family lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Donna later moved to New York City. Donna moved to a condo in Alexandria in 1988, continuing to write her column, “Around Town,” for Washington Life Magazine. The column ran for more than 25 years.

A longtime friend, as part of a 100th birthday party held for Donna, described her thusly: “Let’s see: actress, better looking than Marilyn Monroe, scuba diver, linguist (French, Italian, and a funny dialect of Alpine German), owner and editor of the Paris Gazette, formidable chef, wine expert – preferably Bordeaux, savior of D.C. Goodwill after it lost its moorings around 1969, CEO of a mailing company she founded, and a fixture at embassy parties and hostess at Washington society gatherings.”

Donna Hamilton Shor is survived by her twin children, Brian and Donnali Fifield, and by her granddaughter, Remy Fifield, and Remy’s mother, Marla Cassida. She was predeceased by her twin grandsons, William and Wendell Fifield-Freeman, and is survived by their father, Kyle Freeman.