Donald oconnor biography films 2015
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O'Connor, Donald, PFC
His full name was Donald David Dixon Ronald O'Connor.
Childhood on the Road
Actor. Born August 28, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the fourth surviving child of Effie and Edward O'Connor, two stars of vaudeville who had first won fame as Ringling Bros. circus performers. Ten months after O'Connor's birth, his 7-year-old sister Arline was struck by a car and killed. O'Connor's devastated father died of a heart attack weeks later.
During the Great Depression, the surviving O'Connors traveled from city to city, performing for food if necessary. Effie O'Connor had become extremely overprotective of her remaining children, seeming never to completely recover from the chock of losing her daughter and husband. O'Connor joined the family act when he was just a toddler. He enjoyed being on stage, which also served as escape from his dominerande mother.
Early Roles
In 1937, O'Connor was spotted by Paramount Pictures, and hi
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A Mule is a Mule
Having recently seen all seven Francis the Talking Mule films, I think inom can state with some authority that mules are not the most expressive of animals. They lack the emotional range of dogs; they haven’t the poetic nobility of horses nor the charm and animation of dolphins; nor do they possess that enskild attitude of cats, an aloof serenity that gives them the grandeur of gods.
No, mules tend just to stand there. Occasionally they might prick up their ears and look tolerably interested if something of interest fryst vatten offered to them (carrots, say), but in the main they assume the expression of what P.G. Wodehouse called a stuffed frog. It can’t be easy to make a mule look lively. Just take a gander at that hee-hawing mule image on the Francis DVD låda. It looks more like a squashed woman’s shoe with a dangling heel than anything mammalian. The challenge for a rulle director would be to man a mule look good on camera—to endow that long, flat
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I have been reminded that we missed the opportunity to recall Donald O'Connor upon his August 28th birthday. Shame on us. I do hope that that doesn't mean that we have been neglecting to make room in the entertainment portions of our busy lives for the wonderfully talented, warm-hearted gentleman.
Born in a trunk in 1925, Donald was part of a family of vaudevillians and he, along with his siblings, made his movie debut at the age of 12. He co-starred with Bing Crosby and Fred MacMurray in the delightful Sing You Sinners (1938) (where is the dvd?!?), played Gary Cooper as a lad in Beau Geste (1939) and was Tom Sawyer, Detective and Huckleberry Finn.
The 40s kept the young man working in a series of pictures with talented Peggy Ryan and the 50s brought him an unusual partner in the form of a talking mule. Francis was an original and bright little Service comedy whose popularity led to a series for Universal. The 50s also gave him a chance to shine is top-not