![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1057\/2014\/08\/donald-oconnor-side-leap-still.jpg\")
<\/a>\nPart II here<\/a>
\nPart III here<\/a><\/p>\n
Quickly: Who\u2019s the most talented entertainer you can name? For many, it would be the man who just took his own life last month. An older generation\u00a0might name\u00a0Dick Van Dyke. Yet another generation might reach still further into the past, to silent film stars like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.\u00a0What\u00a0do legends like these all share in common? Answer: They all had an extraordinary gift for making\u00a0anyone\u00a0happy, except themselves.<\/p>\n
To that remarkable\u00a0list,\u00a0I would add another\u00a0name. I would add the name of the man who immortalized laughter in three short minutes<\/a> of pure genius on film. I would add the name of Donald O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n Perhaps Paramount exec A. C. Lyles said it best: \u201cDonald O\u2019Connor\u2019s name, spelled backwards, would be talent.\u201d Gene Kelly simply dubbed him \u201cThe O\u2019Connor.\u201d But his story sounds too painfully familiar: a lightning-fast comic wit, a master of improv, full of explosive energy and beloved by fans, yet privately haunted by divorce, addiction and depression. Except that his story does not end like so many other sad, sad stories. No, my friends.\u00a0This is a story that ends with hope. Effie was a bareback rider, a childhood runaway from Decatur, Illinois. Her husband, John O\u2019Connor, was a strong-man. He too had run away from his home across the sea in County Cork, Ireland, hitching\u00a0his fortunes to a wagon show bound for America. They met in the circus and married when she was 14. Donald was the youngest of seven, three of whom had already died in childbirth.<\/p>\n The world of show business was a world of tradeoffs. Donald was at once another mouth to feed and another $25 for the tight-knit family troupe\u2014that is, as soon as he could be semi-balanced on a stage. Like gypsies, they traveled the country in their REO Speedwagon, plying their wares of laughter. But death\u2019s pale horse was never far behind.\u00a0In the same month that Donald earned his first paycheck, at the ripe old age of 1, his 6-year-old sister ran across the street and was killed instantly by a Ford. Had she not left little Donald\u2019s stroller on the sidewalk to make the run, he might have shared her fate.\u00a0Mere months later, John O\u2019Connor collapsed of a heart attack.\u00a0His death would haunt\u00a0Donald\u00a0for decades to come. He came to know\u00a0his father only through others\u2019 recollections of him\u2014this man they called \u201cthe Nijinsky of acrobats,\u201d who could leap to impossible heights and hold a team of elephants together with his bare hands.<\/p>\n Still, the show went on, and Donald quickly grew into his role. In his words, \u201cYou learned to be great real fast. You went out there and caught the audience\u2019s attention in the first 25 seconds or you ruined it for the family. If you heard laughter you knew it was working.\u201d Meanwhile, he learned his first dance steps by pure osmosis on the streets, in the corner drug stores. Nobody ever put a name to any of it for him. He\u00a0knew only\u00a0that he loved it, and that\u00a0show business was the only life he would ever want. The O\u2019Connors shared the stage with everyone\u00a0from the Marx Brothers, to Abbot & Costello, to Jimmy Durante, to Al Jolson. No chance to watch the masters at work was lost on the sharply observant lad.<\/p>\n Donald\u2019s stoicism under intense duress developed at an early age. Handstand tricks made broken arms a constant risk for him and his brothers. When Donald\u2019s turn came, he kept silent and repeated the trick on the broken arm for four shows in a row. At another show, his finger was accidentally slammed in a door at the exact moment of his stage cue. Although he was less than ten, he had the showman\u2019s instinct\u00a0to yell \u201cVamp! Vamp!\u201d to the pianist as he struggled to free himself. The finger was later confirmed broken.<\/p>\n By age\u00a0eleven, he was already slaying them in the aisles.\u00a0His first big film break was\u00a0due as much to\u00a0luck as to talent, when a\u00a0Paramount scout\u00a0caught the family act at the right benefit dinner and pounced: \u201cGet that kid!\u201d The next thing Donald knew, he was playing\u00a0Bing Crosby\u2019s kid brother and\u00a0learning how to speak softly for the camera. Bing took the boy under his wing and gave him valuable professional guidance, privately asking, \u201cIsn\u2019t there anything he can\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>do?\u201d The picture was a hit. A\u00a0trio number with Bing, Donald and\u00a0Fred MacMurray, in which Donald sang harmony, played accordion, and strutted a few moves, showcased his\u00a0already considerable\u00a0gifts. Watch two other clips\u00a0of his very early work here<\/a> and\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n Young Donald mingled easily with his new peers, promptly developing a crush on the young Judy Garland. (They became lifelong friends.) In the next year, he churned out roughly one film per month, playing kid brothers, cute sons, and boyish pals. Financially, it was a godsend to his family, but Donald\u2019s mature reflections on child stardom were not so favorable. In a 1960 interview, he said that \u201cThey [child stars] are exposed to failure and money at the wrong times.\u201d Of his own career, he recalled that so many people had a stake in his success, the only person he could ultimately count on \u201cfor honest, objective advice\u201d was himself. Behind the scenes, he struggled with his mother\u2019s almost obsessive domination of him. Traumatized by his sister\u2019s death, Effie\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0let him\u00a0cross the street until he was 13. Judy\u00a0Garland recalled the day they forgot and ran across one together, for which Donald was punished with\u00a0a slap across the face.<\/p>\n In true show biz style, Donald was unceremoniously dropped from Paramount\u2019s roster\u00a0as soon as he began outgrowing his\u00a0juvenile wardrobe. It was a bitter pill, but he took the news\u00a0on the chin, with a glint of rebellion: \u201cSo what! I\u2019ll play this circuit again.\u201d There was nowhere to go but back to the family act. Then\u00a0another cruel twist of the knife came in the death of his older brother Billy, from scarlet fever. Speaking to the BBC decades later, Donald would recall that Billy was \u201cthe most magnificent\u201d comedic talent\u00a0of them all.<\/p>\n In 1941, Donald\u00a0got a second break when Universal Pictures invited him to join an elite\u00a0group of teenage dancers called The Jivin\u2019 Jacks and Jills. With no formal training, he was a calculated risk, one\u00a0the studio almost regretted when\u00a0he was initially pronounced \u201cunteachable.\u201d Under the guidance of choreographer Louis Da Pron, he spent the\u00a0group\u2019s\u00a0first couple pictures sweating to catch up in the background while the prodigies around him took the spotlight. He was ruthlessly self-deprecatory when recalling this baptism by fire in later years, telling the BBC, \u201cI\u2019m a klutz\u2026.It takes me twice, three times as\u00a0long as anyone else to learn anything.\u201d Under\u00a0grueling budget and time constraints, the young dancers\u00a0managed to produce excellent work that remains fresh and alive today. (Other notable members included future choreographer Bob Fosse and ballet star Tommy Rall, who played Frankincense in\u00a0Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.<\/em>)<\/p>\n Donald would break through to become the group\u2019s star player, stealing the show with his equally charismatic partner Peggy Ryan. Their B musicals\u00a0kept young people packing the theaters and boosted morale for wounded American GIs. (One would tell O\u2019Connor years later, \u201cYou and Peggy Ryan were always coming over the horizon.\u201d)\u00a0Together, the\u00a0dancing pair created a brilliant fusion of skill and slapstick. One number required Ryan to land a precisely controlled high kick mere inches away from O\u2019Connor\u2019s chin, while still appearing\u00a0to make contact. This montage shows his chemistry with both Ryan and fellow co-star Gloria Jean (who shared some priceless stories about Donald in her autobiography, reviewed here<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\nIt begins on the morning of August 28th, 1925, when his mother woke from exhausted slumber to hear, \u201cHe\u2019s a fine boy. And his name is Donald O\u2019Connor.\u201d The voice belonged to the woman who had found Effie O\u2019Connor beginning labor in a hotel room, while the rest of the O\u2019Connors\u00a0carried on\u00a0the family vaudeville act. She had taken her\u00a0to the hospital\u00a0and kept watch\u00a0all night. \u201cWho said so?\u201d whispered Effie. \u201cMe,\u201d the woman replied matter-of-factly. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked the name Donald.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1057\/2014\/08\/tom-sawyer-detective-shot.jpg\")
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