Donald O'Connor

Perhaps I am mistaken but I suspect Donald O'Connor's career didn't quite pan out the way he would have wanted.  I thought he was a immensely talented dancer (with singing and comedy to help make him a triple threat).  He commanded our attention in a handful of musicals.  Wouldn't he have wanted more than that?  It was pretty much the same if your last name was Nelson, Dailey, Kidd, Fosse, Van, Brascia, Rall and a few others if you were male movie dancers.  Surely they all wished they'd attained the fame and glory that Kelly and Astaire did.

O'Connor's mother had him dancing before he could even walk.  She would put on some music, hold him up and he would dance... over and over again. He also sang before he developed a vocabulary.  He was born to circus performers in 1925 Chicago.  His mother was a bareback rider and his father was a circus strongman.  As they had more and more children, the family became vaudeville performers billed as The O'Connor Family.  Donald first appeared in the act when he was 13 months old.

When he was two, he and his 7-year old sister were crossing the street when they were struck by a car.  She died as a result.  Shortly thereafter his father died of a heart attack while dancing on the stage.  His brother Billy died 10 years later from scarlet fever.  His eldest sibling Jack died from alcoholism in 1959.  He also had three siblings who died at birth.

Not unsurprisingly his mother held onto Donald tightly.  She wasn't about to let something happen to him as well.  In the process she became a fierce stage mother.  She would not let him learn hazardous dance routines and, in fact, though he learned certain routines through his young years, he never had any formal training which he realized shortly after landing in Hollywood.

He became a funny guy, always clowning around, and it helped make him very popular.  He put the comedy in some of the family routines and added singing as well.  If the family act was popular, the kid himself was a whirling dervish.

The act toured the country and when they had time to settle down, they lived with a relative in Danville, Illinois.  Surely nothing about his early life could be more astonishing than the fact that he never went to school.  It seems odd that the early studios he worked for didn't put him in school like all child stars.

In 1937, when he was 11, the family was invited to appear in a movie, Melody for Two.  The following year, he alone signed on with Paramount.  While there he made movies I've never heard of, much less seen (excepting Beau Geste) but he played the younger brother of Fred MacMurray and Bing Crosby and also played MacMurray, Gary Cooper and Eddie Albert as young boys.  He then returned to the family act for a couple of years.

Young as he was, he'd made a name for himself, if not as much with the public as perhaps the Hollywood gentry.  This coincided with the fact that Universal, the king of everything B, was looking for a couple of youngsters to try and duplicate the success of Mickey and Judy over at MGM.  If Donald and Peggy Ryan, she an equally talented singer and dancer who was trying to find a path to Hollywood stardom, never quite measured up to the other pair, they sure in the hell gave it their best.

O'Connor and Ryan made an whopping 13 movies together.  Some of them were those all-star extravaganzas where everyone at the studio has a specialty number to perform but most of their projects were innocent, singing and dancing tales of young love.  O'Connor would always say Ryan was the best dancer he ever twirled around a floor.  I never saw any of their films.

I have a reason for that which I think was widespread enough to explain why he likely didn't have the career he might have wanted.  He was not a leading man type.  That generally means not handsome enough and/or having little or no sex appeal.  He was perennially youthful looking.  When he was 17, he could have passed for 12.  In his 30s he looked like a teen.  In his 50s he could have been in his 30s.  He and Ryan may have made a fine pair since both were young but as an adult, it was hard to take O'Connor in a love scene... and he had few of them.  He was also a prankster and that doesn't scream sex appeal.

He worked alongside Piper Laurie, Gale Storm, Ann Blyth and Lori Nelson in a whole lotta junk with such titles as Are You With It?, Feudin' Fussin' and A-Fightin' and Curtain Call at Cactus Creek.  I didn't see them either.

I hang my head in shame to say I saw any of the six movies in the Francis the Talking Mule series.  I might have seen two and I'd like to think my mama made me take my bratty little brother to see them, in my bored chaperone capacity.  The title always told you all you needed to know... Francis Joins the Wacs, Francis Goes to West Point.  I thought they were beyond dreadful but the undiscerning public lapped them up.  Character actor Chill Wills provided Francis's voice.

O'Connor thought his career was going to wither on the vine and die and there was no going back to vaudeville and Hollywood Palace was still years off.  Once on the set of his final Francis movie, he was so livid he wouldn't come out of his dressing room.  Apparently he couldn't believe this is what it had come to.

In the mid-40s he joined the military for a two-year stint.  In 1944 he married Gwen Carter, a marriage that would last for 10 mainly turbulent years and produce one daughter.  In the late 40s a story broke that Carter had been physically abusive to O'Connor.  She berated him constantly for not having a better career and not making more money.  An event would happen in 1953-54 that would bring the marriage to a close.  

In the early fifties O'Connor hosted the Colgate Comedy Hour and won an Emmy for doing so.  He left the show in 1954 to make The Donald O'Connor Show but it lasted for one season.

There is no question that Singin' in the Rain (1952) is the best piece of work O'Connor ever did.  Some say it's the best musical ever made and while I don't share that opinion, it is an enormously entertaining film.  He went to MGM because star-codirector Gene Kelly wanted him.  As a result, his career sparked up.

Both O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds (they would become lifelong friends) said the experience was grueling because Kelly was a taskmaster and quite often a grouchy one.  Reynolds, who had never danced before, said she'd never worked so hard and got very few attagirls from Kelly.  This is the film on which O'Connor learned he really didn't know much about dancing despite his early years.  He later said he only knew one or two dance routines and all through his vaudeville years they were the only ones he performed.

His Make 'em Laugh routine is understandably world-famous, an exhausting routine that called upon his dancing, singing, acrobatic and comic skills, required backflips off walls and leaps over various objects.  A 4-pack/day smoker at the time, he said the experience nearly killed him and did put him in the hospital for a few days from exhaustion.

The movie was an enormous hit and O'Connor won a Golden Globe for his breezy performance.  While he would never encounter the likes of such a movie again, he became very in-demand as a result of it and the glow would last throughout most of the decade.  Most of his work in the 50s would be interspersed with Francis movies but we won't go there.

By and large whether one liked 20th Century Fox's Call Me Madam (1953) depends on how one feels about Ethel Merman.  The boisterous one is repeating her Broadway role as the U.S. ambassador to a European grand duchy.  It had to be difficult for O'Connor, Vera-Ellen or George Sanders (who sings!) to get much screen time but O'Connor (as Merman's press attaché) and Vera-Ellen (as a princess) did manage some gorgeous dancing. 

 

MGM came calling again because they wanted to reteam O'Connor and Reynolds for I Love Melvin (1953).  It is strictly lightweight fare but these two were a perfect, perky pairing.  A highlight is his dancing on roller skates.

A singing and dancing Janet Leigh partnered with O'Connor in another lightweight but enjoyable flick that centers on a minstrel show in Walking My Baby Back Home (1953).  It features a lively score with such songs as The South Rampart Street Parade, Honeysuckle Rose, Glow Worm, Muskrat Ramble and the engaging title tune... gee but it's great after staying out late walking my baby back home.

I'm not going to say a lot about the storyline of There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) because I plan on giving the film its own posting shortly.   In the meantime there are two stories concerning those in the film that shed some light on the Donald O'Connor story.  Interestingly it concerns a family of vaudevillians, parents and three children, which certainly could have come out of O'Connor's own life.  He, Mitzi Gaynor and New York singer Johnnie Ray (his only film) are the kids and Merman and Dan Dailey are the parents.  

Here's my thing... rarely has there been a more misaligned couple than O'Connor and Monroe.  Their chemistry together as the romantic couple of the film is zero.  Watching them she reminds me of a lady of easy virtue who is helping a teenage boy lose his virginity.  Ugh.  And really now, wasn't Monroe just a little too much woman for the likes of O'Connor?   I promise you I wasn't the only one bemoaning this very strange coupling.

And yet, I think he was smitten with her and he knew he didn't stand a chance.

As stated Dan Dailey is O'Connor's father in the film.  This was apparently one of O'Connor's worst years in his marriage to Carter.  One wonders if he knew that his wife and Dailey were getting to know one another better while the two men hugged it out on screen.  Shortly after the movie was released, Carter became Dailey's third wife.  Those Hollywood Hills were rife with whispers.

Even with some clouds over the filming, O'Connor said There's No Business like Show Business was his favorite of all his movies.  I suppose any actor would be pleased that he or she got to dance, sing, lay on some comedy and handle dramatics, all in one film.

There was another dark cloud hovering at the time when he was too ill to star in White Christmas (1954) in a role that went to Danny Kaye.  I guess he recovered from the loss... I never have.  He would have been teamed again with Vera-Ellen which would have cheered me immensely.  He was looking forward to working with Crosby (again), too, but that would come in his next film.

The Oscar folks knew it was good business to bring O'Connor on as the host of their 1954 awards show.  He felt like dancing on top of the Hollywood sign.  There was a new woman in his life and his career was flying high.  On the other hand, he knew that musicals' popularity was waning and he wondered how many more there were for him.  History tells us it was one.

And to top it off, he got his wish to work with Crosby.  O'Connor would end his movie dancing career back at Paramount, where he started.  Anything Goes (1956) had been synonymous with Merman belting out Cole Porter tunes through 420 Broadway performances.

There was a 1936 film version which also starred Crosby.  While the plot is familiar, there were a few too many changes for the '54 outing that upset folks.  It concerns a singing-dancing team (the guys) who each promises a different woman the lead role in a play they're putting together.  All four wind up on the same cruise with supposedly amusing results.  It was pretty dull for the most part.  Crosby looked bored to death and Zizi Jeanmaaire, while a good dancer, was unknown to most of America.  Gaynor and O'Connor were so well-paired as dancers and she shared his youthful demeanor.

When not making movies, he spent many an hour writing songs and even wrote a symphony which he would, in fact, conduct at the L.A. Philharmonic.

In 1956 he married Gloria Noble.  They would adopt three kids and the marriage was a happy one which would last for the rest of his life.

O'Connor is absolutely terrific as the title star of The Buster Keaton Story (1957) and everyone thought so.  No real dancing but lots of comedy that even delighted the real man when he visited the set.  It was a departure for O'Connor because there was a great deal of drama and drunk scenes because Keaton lead that kind of life.  

The reel and real Buster Keaton

The shame is that the film, the story, is junk... about as fictional as a film bio can be.  And why?  The comic's real life was certainly interesting enough to be told truthfully.  O'Connor worked with two of filmland's most beautiful actresses, Ann Blyth and Rhonda Fleming, each of whom played characters that were composites of several real wives or girlfriends.  Had this film been more honest and polished by writer-director, Sidney Sheldon, it might have kept O'Connor in the spotlight, perhaps even an Oscar nomination, who knows?

However, the film was so poor that O'Connor's performance was largely ignored by those who dole out awards.  By the late 50s he was doing a lot of television.  Some of it was quality stuff and a great deal was on comedians' shows (Skelton, Benny, Gleason) where he could engage in all those things he did so well.

It was back to silliness opposite Glenn Ford in the military comedy Cry for Happy (1961).  Its tag line read... You'll cry for happy, happy, happy when four U.S. sailors take over a geisha house... geisha girls and all.  Now don't rush to bring up YouTube to see it.  Other than glimpses of James Shigeta, this is oh-so-forgettable.  

He turned his attention to doing live performances.  His shyness wasn't as bad as it used to be.  He would do a little dancing, a little singing and his buddies who were outright comics surely gave him some of his funny material.  He loved to schmooze with the crowd.

His venues were local, hometown gigs and elsewhere around the country but he drew 'em to his dazzling shows in Vegas.  

He returned to Universal after 10 years away to costar in a Sandra Dee-Bobby Darin romcom (their last together), That Funny Feeling (1965).  The film didn't do the business all were hoping for.  Perhaps he had that funny feeling that his movie career was over... and for the most part, that was certainly true.

In 1968 he hosted a syndicated talk show, again with his name in the title.  But it was cancelled early on because there were complaints of it being too political.  He jumped into television guest-starring roles with both feet and for the next 35 years that is mainly what he did.

In 1971 O'Connor had a heart attack.  Also in the early 70s, he began taking nitroglycerin pills before live performances to increase his stamina.  He also was suffering from severe bouts of depression, all of which led him to a three-month hospital stay.  The depression would last for some time.

Gene Kelly kissing & making up

His life in the 80s involved much stage work... most famously as Cap'n Andy in Show Boat.  He first did the show on Broadway but then toured around the country for years.  The old-time favorite usually focused on the romance between Andy's daughter Magnolia and a gambling man Gaylord Ravenal but when a name actor played Cap'n Andy, the focus of the story was tweaked a bit.

When interviewed about doing the part for so long, he told the reporter to note that he could still dance and sing and cut up and he doesn't want to get old.

In 1981, having not been in a movie for 16 years, he was offered a small role in Milos Forman's Ragtime playing a gaslight-era entertainer.  He would join James Cagney who hadn't made a film in 20 years.  Of course O'Connor was older but he had finally reached an age (56) where he could accept a compliment on his youthful appearance.  I suppose I am in the minority when calling it a very good film.

He would undergo triple heart bypass surgery in 1990.  A near-lifetime of heavy smoking and too much booze and with a father who died of a heart attack, the surgery may not have surprised those who were in his inner circle.  It did cause the O'Connors to move back to Los Angeles to be near family after living for years in Sedona, Arizona.

Welcome back to L. A.  In 1994 at 4 a.m. an earthquake struck.  O'Connor was reading in bed and the couple was terrified as their house came loose from its foundation, heading toward dropping into a canyon below when it was stopped and wedged against a tree.

In 1997 he returned to the screen one last time when he made the comedy Out to Sea with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Dyan Cannon and Rue McClanahan.  He played a dance host on a cruise ship.

In 1998 O'Connor was hospitalized with a severe bout of viral pneumonia.  He convalesced for nine months and returned to limited performing.  He may never have truly recovered from his health issues when he went to live at the Woodland Hills Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital where he died of heart failure in 2003 at age 78.

Donald O'Connor was one of those rare birds in Hollywood... he was a genuinely nice guy.  It seemed everyone liked him.  And he, in turn, cared about others... many others... considering his private humanitarian efforts over the years.  He was a fabulous dancer and versatile performer and indeed that versatility kept him active in show business long after the movie musical faded.  I hope he had a good life.

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Working Together Again