Donald O'Connor

The Man Who Ended Up in the Hospital Over a Dance

Donald O'Connor ended up in a hospital bed after filming the Singin' in the Rain sequence in 1952. He smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and had to repeat the stunts against the wall because the film lab ruined the footage the first time. It was a physical ordeal that nearly cost him his health. But the result is the most perfect physical comedy scene of that decade.

He was born in Chicago in 1925. His parents were vaudeville acrobats, and he learned to dance before he learned to write his own name. The stage was his natural habitat, so movies were simply a logical extension of the stunts he had been performing with his family since the age of three.

And the gamble paid off.

Universal Pictures signed him to be the comic foil in low-budget musicals. He worked at a frantic pace, making several films a year with barely any rest between sets. In 1944 he had to put his career on hold to serve in the army during World War II.

The Mule Who Stole the Show

In 1950 he released Francis. It was a simple comedy about a talking mule, and nobody expected it to become a box office phenomenon. The film spawned six direct sequels. But O'Connor eventually grew tired of the animal because the mule received more fan mail than the actor himself.

He left the franchise in 1955.

He wanted to prove he was more than just a sidekick to a talking mule. In 1953 he won a Golden Globe for his role in Call Me Madam. But the industry was changing, and big musicals were losing ground to rawer genres. His athletic dancing style no longer fit the new wave of Hollywood.

He spent much of the 1960s and 1970s working in television. He had his own variety show and guest-starred in dozens of series. In 1981 he returned to Broadway with the musical Bring Back Birdie, but the show closed after just four performances due to bad reviews.

It was a hard blow to his morale.

In 1997, he filmed his last significant big-screen appearance in Out to Sea. He shared the bill with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a comedy set on a luxury cruise. In September 2003, he died at a care facility in Calabasas from heart failure at the age of 78.