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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustard" data-source="post: 398806" data-attributes="member: 46">I assume that Donna would play it her way, and the brass would let her get on with it. You can't really tell a new actor taking on an established role to imitate his or her predecessor.Perhaps they didn't know the subtleties of Miss Ellie's character to the dynamics of making Dallas a huge success. There are some people on these forums, for example, who think Miss Ellie is a pretty minor character who the viewers didn't really care about, or who share the view of Barbara's Miss Ellie as what Donna Reed had at the time, i.e. she doesn't look or seem like an oil baron's wife from Texas, while Donna Reed's Miss Ellie actually looks the part. They are missing the point, and basically killed the Ewing vs. Southworth conflict and dynamic in the show.I think Donna did remark that she wanted to look the part a lot more, i.e. of an oil baron's wife. I think it made Miss Ellie much more one dimensional and certainly with a lot less emotion, in a way that goes beyond acting.The whole thing was a mess at the time. Reed sued Lorimar after getting sacked, even trying to close down the production of scenes involving the Miss Ellie character (which failed), and she and got an out-of-court settlement, but tragically passed away a few months later.</blockquote>