Online Encyclopedia
Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor (August 28, 1925 - September 27, 2003) was a singer, dancer and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred with Francis, the talking mule . He is still best known for his performance in the movie musical Singing in the Rain.
O'Connor was born into an Irish immigrant family of vaudeville entertainers. As a toddler, he and his sister were involved in a road accident, which resulted in her death. His father died of a heart attack only a few weeks later. Yet it was as a comedy actor and a song-and-dance man that he became famous. His boyish looks did not allow him to take a romantic lead, except when appearing with a bigger star such as Ethel Merman (in Call Me Madam) or Bing Crosby (with whom he appeared in his first film at the age of eleven). However, he did have a separate Hollywood career in the late 1930s, in which he played such incongruous roles as Beau Geste . During World War II, he was re-invented as a star of musical films.
When the heyday of the film musical was over, O'Connor returned to the stage, and had a short-lived television series during the late 1960s. After overcoming a drinking problem in the 1970s, he continued to make film and television appearances into the 1990s. O'Connor was still making public appearances well into 2003.
Among his last words, he is reported to have expressed thanks for the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement which he expected to win at some future date. He left his wife, Gloria, and four children.
Screen appearances
- 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
- Death of a Champion - 1939
- On Your Toes - 1939
- Night Work - 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
- 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
- Yes Sir That's My Baby - 1949
- Francis - 1950 - first of the "talking mule" movies
- 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
- Le Meraviglie di Aladino - 1961
- That Funny Feeling - 1965
- The Donald O'Connor Show - 1968 (television series)
- Ragtime - 1981
- Pandemonium - 1982
- Alice in Wonderland - 1983 (made for television)
- Alice in Wonderland - 1985 (made for television)
- A Time to Remember - 1987
- Toys - 1992
- Bandit: Bandit's Silver Angel - 1994 (made for television)
- Father Frost - 1996
- Out to Sea - 1997