Dona Hardy

Dona Hardy (December 3, 1912 – February 13, 2011), sometimes misspelled as Donna Hardy, was an American film and television actress.

Early life

Jean Dona Barley was born December 3, 1912 in Los Angeles to a single mother, Ethel Macgillivoy Barley, and raised by her grandparents. In the early 1930s she toured the United States with a dance troupe, but left and returned to her native Los Angeles during the Depression. She briefly dated an up-and-coming, but still largely unknown, actor named Anthony Quinn.[1] She was the Executive Director of a United Way affiliate, and retired at age 66, when she looked to begin her acting career.[2]

Acting career

Hardy began her acting career late in life, usually playing sweet, sometimes deceptively harmless-looking old ladies. During her acting career, Hardy bedded John Ritter, kissed Matthew Perry, and, fitted with a walker, was asked by faux-auteur Jerry Stiller (in an episode of The King of Queens) to consider "some tasteful nudity" for a community theater production of The Gin Game. She worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson in her first film credit, the Stephen King-penned thriller, The Running Man,[3] in which she had played "Mrs. McArdle" and had to say a certain 12 letter hyphenated vulgarism. "There is nothing that people enjoy so much as hearing old people say dirty words.... I don't know what's so attractive about that, but every old lady knows she is going to be asked to say the 'F' word sooner or later."[4] Her second film credit, When Harry Met Sally, was her favorite film. Her last role was in 2010.

Personal life

She married Irving Hardekopf in 1946; the couple adopted a son and remained together until his death in 1980. Widowed, she adapted her acting name from a shortened version of her married name. In 2009, she relocated with her son, Bill, a former president/general manager of the Birmingham Barons, to the Birmingham area, where she died on February 13, 2011, aged 98.

Selected filmography

Films

Television

References

  1. ↑ Dona Hardy profile
  2. ↑ Obituary for Jean Dona Hardekopf
  3. ↑ The Running Man on IMDb
  4. ↑ Profile (PDF)
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