Donald O'Connor

Donald O'Connor
in I Love Melvin
Born	Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor August 28, 1925(1925-08-28) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died	September 27, 2003(2003-09-27) (aged 78) Calabasas, California, United States
Occupation	dancer, singer, actor
Years active	1937–97
Spouse	Gwen Carter (1944-54) Gloria Noble (1956-2003)

Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor (August 28, 1925 – September 27, 2003) was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule. He is best known today for his role as Gene Kelly's friend and colleague in Singin' in the Rain (1952).

Life and career

Early years

Though he considered Danville, Illinois to be his home town, O’Connor was born in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Irish American vaudeville entertainers. When O'Connor was only a few years old, he and his sister Arlene were in a car crash outside a theater in Hartford, Connecticut; O'Connor survived, but his sister was killed. Several weeks later, his father died of a heart attack while dancing on stage in Brockton, Massachusetts.^[1] O'Connor at the time was being held in the arms of the theater manager Mr. Maurice Sims.

Career

O'Connor began performing in movies in 1937. He appeared opposite Bing Crosby in Sing, You Sinners at age 12. Paramount Pictures used him in both A and B films, including Tom Sawyer, Detective and Beau Geste.^[1] In 1940, when he had outgrown child roles, he returned to vaudeville.

In 1942 O'Connor joined Universal Pictures. He played roles in four of the Gloria Jean musicals, and achieved stardom with Mister Big (1943).

The handprints of Donald O'Connor in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

In 1944, O'Connor was drafted into the Army. Before he reported for induction, Universal Pictures rushed him through three feature films, done simultaneously and released when he was overseas. After his discharge, Universal (now reorganized as Universal-International) cast him in lightweight musicals and comedies.

In 1949, he played the lead role in Francis, the story of a soldier befriended by a talking mule. The film was a huge success. However, his musical career was constantly interrupted by his making one Francis film a year until 1955. It was because of Francis that O'Connor missed out on playing Bing Crosby's companion in White Christmas. O'Connor was unavailable because he contracted an illness transmitted by the mule, and was replaced in the film by Danny Kaye. O'Connor's role as Cosmo the piano player in Singin' in the Rain earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy or Musical.

Donald O'Connor was a regular host of NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour.^[1] He hosted a color television special on NBC in 1957, one of the earliest color programs to be preserved on a color kinescope; an excerpt of the telecast was included in NBC's 50th anniversary special in 1976. He also had a television series in the late 1960s.

After overcoming alcoholism in the 1970s,^[1] he had a career boost when he hosted the Academy Awards, which earned him two Primetime Emmy nominations. He appeared as a gaslight-era entertainer in the 1981 film Ragtime, notable for similar encore performances by James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. O'Connor appeared in the short-lived Bring Back Birdie on Broadway in 1981, and continued to make film and television appearances into the 1990s. Donald O'Connor's last feature film was the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy Out to Sea, in which he played a dance host on a cruise ship. O’Connor was still making public appearances well into 2003.

Death

Donald O'Connor died from congestive heart failure in 2003 at age 78. He is reported to have expressed tongue-in-cheek thanks to the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement that he expected to receive at a "future date". His remains were cremated and buried at the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

O'Connor was survived by his wife, Gloria, and four children.^[1]

References in popular culture

Donald O'Connor's computer-generated likeness appeared, alongside that of Gene Kelly, in a 2011 television commercial, for the Volkswagen Jetta, in which they performed a seated dance in the backseat of a Jetta to illustrate the large amount of leg room available.^[2] O'Connor's signature "Make 'Em Laugh" number has often been repeated by other entertainers. In 1995, Tim Curry, Kathy Najimy, and Mara Wilson reprised it onstage at the Academy Awards.^{[citation needed]} Versions of it have also been performed on other the television programs Glee^[3] and Saturday Night Live.^[4]

Filmography

Film

It Can't Last Forever (1937) Men with Wings (1938) Sing You Sinners (1938) Sons of the Legion (1938) Tom Sawyer, Detective (1938) Boy Trouble (1939) Unmarried (1939) Million Dollar Legs (1939) Beau Geste (1939) Night Work (1939) Death of a Champion (1939) On Your Toes (1939) What's Cookin'? (1942) Private Buckaroo (1942) Give Out, Sisters (1942) Get Hep to Love (1942) When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1942) It Comes Up Love (1943) Mister Big (1943) Top Man (1943) Chip Off the Old Block (1944) Follow the Boys (1944) This Is the Life (1944) The Merry Monahans (1944) Bowery to Broadway (1944) Patrick the Great (1945) Something in the Wind (1947) Are You With It? (1948) Feudin', Fussin', and A-Fightin' (1948)

Screen Snapshots: Motion Picture Mothers, Inc. (1949) (short subject) Yes Sir That's My Baby (1949) Francis (1950) Curtain Call at Cactus Creek (1950) The Milkman (1950) Double Crossbones (1951) Francis Goes to the Races (1951) Singin' in the Rain (1952) Francis Goes to West Point (1952) I Love Melvin (1953) Call Me Madam (1953) Francis Covers the Big Town (1953) Walking My Baby Back Home (1953) Francis Joins the WACS (1954) There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) Francis in the Navy (1955) Anything Goes (1956) The Buster Keaton Story (1957) Cry for Happy (1961) The Wonders of Aladdin (1961) That Funny Feeling (1965) Just One More Thyme (1974) (short subject) That's Entertainment! (1974) Ragtime (1981) Pandemonium (1982) A Time to Remember (1987) Toys (1992) Father Frost (1996) Out to Sea (1997) (Gabby)

Television

• The Milton Berle Show (producer) – 1948
• Colgate Comedy Hour – 1951-54
• The Donald O'Connor Show – 19 episodes on NBC, 1954–55
• Petticoat Junction (director) – 1964
• Bell Telephone Hour – 1964-66
• The Donald O'Connor Show - 1968
• Ellery Queen – episode "The Comic Book Crusader" – October 2, 1975
• The Bionic Woman – episode "A Thing of the Past" (February 18, 1976)
• The Love Boat – 1981-84
• Alice – "Guinness on Tap", as himself, 1982
• Littest Hobo – episode "The Clown" as Fred (1982)^[5]
• Alice in Wonderland (1985 film) as The Lory Bird, 1985
• Tales from the Crypt - 1992
• Frasier – episode "Crane vs. Crane" as Harlow Safford, 1996
• The Nanny – episode "Freida Needa Man" as Fred (1996)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Richard Severo (September 29, 2003). "Donald O'Connor, 78, Who Danced His Way Through Many Hollywood Musicals, Is Dead". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20716FD3A590C7A8EDDA00894DB404482. Retrieved March 2, 2011. 
2. ^ Linda Holmes (January 24, 2011). "What's Wrong With Waking The Dead: Gene Kelly And Donald O'Connor, Cut Out". NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/01/24/133174094/whats-wrong-with-waking-the-dead-gene-kelly-and-donald-oconnor-for-jetta. Retrieved March 2, 2011. 
3. ^ "The Substitute". Harry Shum, Jr. as Mike Chang and Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester. Glee. FOX. November 16, 2010 (2010-11-16). No. 7, season 2. Retrieved on July 16, 2011.
4. ^ Graham, Mark (November 22, 2009). "Joseph Gordon-Levitt Makes ‘Em Laugh (And Then Some) on SNL". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/joseph_gordon-levitt_makes_em.html. Retrieved July 16, 2011. 
5. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0633267/

External links

Biography portal

• Donald O'Connor at Find a Grave
• Donald O'Connor at the Internet Broadway Database
• Donald O'Connor at the Internet Movie Database
• Essay on Donald O'Connor
• Mindy Alloff's 1979 interview with O'Connor
• Donald O'Connor on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (1951-54) at Classic TV Info.
• Donald O'Connor on "Texaco Star Theater" (1954-55) at Classic TV Info.
• Film-shots

Persondata
Name	O'Connor, Donald
Alternative names	O’Connor, Donald David Dixon Ronald
Short description	dancer, singer, actor
Date of birth	August 28, 1925
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Date of death	September 27, 2003
Place of death	Calabasas, California, U.S.