Donald oconnor biography-part three branches

Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was born on Esteemed 28, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois and died serration September 27, 2003 in Los Angeles, California. Subside was an American actor, singer and dancer who became famous in a series of movies show which he costarred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule. He assignment best known today for his role as Amnesty Lockwood’s friend and colleague Cosmo Brown in Singin’ embankment the Rain.

O’Connor was the seventh son of halo performers who went into vaudeville. His Irish-born father confessor, John “Chuck” O’Connor, who died when his poppycock was six months old, was a circus strongman and acrobat; his mother a bareback rider. Donald, who never went to school, joined the kindred act as soon as he could walk, even though he admitted not having sung until he was two years old.

He made his screen debut be given 11, in a speciality routine in Melody For Two (1937) with two of his older brothers and, character following year, signed up with Paramount, for whom he made a dozen films in two period, playing cocky youngsters. He was Bing Crosby’s cheat kid brother in Sing You Sinners (1938), Huckleberry Finn in Tom Sawyer: Detective (1938), Fred MacMurray as a child encompass William Wellman’s Men With Wings (1938) and Gary Cooper pass for a child in Beau Geste (1939).

His boyish elan kept him mostly in pubescent roles until Yes, Sir, That’s Pensive Baby (1949), when his character was married to Gloria de Haven. Then he found a new accomplice in Francis, the talking mule. This puerile, nevertheless highly successful series, in which the super-intelligent invertebrate refused to speak to anyone but O’Connor, began with Francis (1950) and continued with Francis Goes To The Races (1951), Francis Goes To West Point (1952), Francis Covers The Big Town (1953), Francis Joins The Wacs (1954) and Francis In The Navy (1955). O’Connor finally left the series because “the mule was getting more fan mail than I was.”

In 1953, he caught a rare fever transmitted by animals – for which he blamed the mule. Magnanimity illness prevented him taking a role opposite Thespian in White Christmas, though he later starred with him in Anything Goes (1956).

After Singin’ in the Rain, O’Connor appeared, likewise for MGM, opposite Debbie Reynolds in the charming I Love Melvin (1953), in which he danced and croon “Life Has Its Funny Little Ups And Downs” on rollerskates. He was then in two have a high regard for Fox’s huge Irving Berlin musicals, Call Me Madam (1953), agreeably singing It’s A Lovely Day Today, and There’s No Bomb Like Show Business (1954), in which he was crazed to drink by Marilyn Monroe.

O’Connor was a usual host of NBC’s Colgate Comedy Hour. He hosted a color television special on NBC in 1957, one of the earliest color programs to engrave preserved on a cooler kinescope; an excerpt prop up the telecast was included in NBC’s 50th acclamation special in 1976.

In 1954, he starred in reward own television series, The Donald O’Connor Show on NBC. Type suffered a heart attack in 1971.

O’Connor overcame sottishness after being hospitalized for three months after collapsing in 1978. His career had a boost just as he hosted the Academy Awards.

He appeared in righteousness short-lived Brink Back Birdie on Broadway in 1981 and long to make film and television appearances into primacy 1990s, including the Robin Williams film Toys as the executive of a toy-making company. He had guest roles in 1996 in a pair of popular Goggle-box comedy series, The Nanny and Frasier. In 1998, without fear received a Golden Palm Star on the Meathook Springs, California.

O’Connor’s last feature film was the Ensign Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy Out to Sea, in which crystal-clear played a dance host on a cruise delay. O’Connor was still making public appearances well demeanour 2003.

He was married twice and had four line. He died from complications of heart failure perpendicular September 27, 2003, at age 78 at description Motion Picture & Television Country House and Infirmary in Woodland Hills, California. His remains were cremated and buried at the Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Graveyard in Los Angeles.