IN SEARCH OF DONNA REED

IN SEARCH OF DONNA REED Jay Fultz (University of Iowa Press, $25.95) In this earnest hagiography by a self-confessed Reed fan ''since my pimply adolescence,'' the author perfunctorily traces the path of this ambitious ''cornfed beauty'' from Iowa to Hollywood -- her three marriages, various career snubs, and death from pancreatic cancer two weeks before her 65th birthday. Though she won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity and a Golden Globe for her eponymous TV show (almost titled Aw Gee, Mom!), Reed always felt like a second-class Hollywood citizen and was often treated as such (she was fired from Dallas with two years left on her contract). Fultz concludes that ''having come all this distance, I still can't explain her hold on my lost youth...maybe now I have some kind of hold on her. My own Donna Reed.'' Time to get a life, Mr. Fultz. C+