Paul Petersen #1
Paul Petersen #1
Actor, singer, writer, spokesman and child rights activist
Paul Petersen began performing as one of the original "Mousketeers" on the "Mickey Mouse Club". He achieved stardom as a teenage heartthrob on The Donna Reed Show, an ABC family sitcom that ran from 1958 to 1966. He played son Jeff Stone from the time he was twelve until he was twenty.
His movie credits include, "This Could Be The Night" (MGM), "Monolith Monsters" (Universal), "Houseboat" (Paramount) with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, and "Journey to Shiloh". He has played important television roles in "Playhouse 90", "Lux Video Theatre", "Ford Theatre", "G.E. Theater" and "The Virginian". Click here for his filmography.
Paul had hit record singles with songs "She Can't Find Her Keys", "Amy", and "Lollipops and Roses", as well as "My Dad" that made the Billboard Hot 100. The song was part of a Donna Reed Show episode on October, 1962, in which Jeff's father, Dr. Alex Stone (Carl Betz), was always missing family events because of house calls. When he arrived too late to hear Jeff's song in a show, the band persuaded Jeff to perform an encore backstage.
In the mid-seventies, Paul decided to embark on a writing career. His first publication was a non-fiction book on high performance racecar driving, followed by eight fictional action-adventure books in a series called The Smuggler. In 1977, he penned a biographical work about the original Mousketeers, "Walt, Mickey and Me".
In 1990, he founded the child-actor support group called A Minor Consideration to improve working conditions for child actors and to assist in the transition between working as a child actor and adult life, whether in acting or in other professions.
He is currently a board member of the Donna Reed Foundation, and works for the Donna Reed Festival which takes place on the third week of June every year in Denison, Iowa, Donna's hometown.
Visit Paul's Official Website to share some personal memories of a career that started at age 9.