Acting Career
Donlevy began his career in New York in the early 1920s, appearing in many theater productions and also winning an increasing number of silent film parts. Previously, he had modeled for the illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, who produced illustrations for the famous Arrow Collar advertisements. His Broadway credits included Hit the Deck and Life Begins at 8:40.
Donlevy's break came in 1935, when he was cast in the Edward G. Robinson film Barbary Coast. A large amount of film work followed, with several important parts. In 1939, he played the lead villain in Destry Rides Again and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the ruthless Sergeant Markoff in Beau Geste, although the Oscar went to Thomas Mitchell for Stagecoach.
The following year, he played the role for which he is perhaps best remembered, that of McGinty in The Great McGinty, a role he reprised four years later in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. In 1942, Donlevy starred in Wake Island and The Glass Key. In 1955, he played the lead in the British science-fiction horror film The Quatermass Xperiment (called The Creeping Unknown in the US) for the Hammer Films company, playing the lead role of Professor Bernard Quatermass. The film was based on a 1953 BBC Television serial of the same name. The character had been British, but Hammer cast Donlevy, who was born in County Armagh, Ireland, and raised in the United States, in an attempt to help sell the film to North American audiences. Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale disliked Donlevy's portrayal, referring to Donlevy as "a former Hollywood heavy gone to seed". Nonetheless, the film version was a success and Donlevy returned for the sequel, Quatermass 2 (Enemy From Space in the US), in 1957, also based on a BBC television serial. This made Donlevy the only man ever to play the famous scientist on screen twice, although later Scottish actor Andrew Keir would play him two times, once on film and then on the radio.
Throughout his film career, Donlevy also did several radio shows, including a reprise of The Great McGinty. He played the lead character in Dangerous Assignment between 1949 and 1954, taking the series to TV in 1952. He featured in a number of films over the following years until his death. He also appeared in a variety of television series from the late 1940s until the mid-1960s, guest-starring on such popular programs as Crossroads, Perry Mason, Wagon Train and Rawhide,. In 1957, he appeared in a CBS production of the A. J. Cronin's Beyond This Place. In 1960, he appeared as John Ridges in the episode "Escape" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, with Sylvia Sidney portraying his wife. His last film role was in The Winner, released in 1969.
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