JD_Fan

I read in a pressbook James Donald (Bridge on the River Kwai) was born in Canada. That surprised me as well, I always thought he was scottish (born in Aberdeen in 1917)!

Does anybody knows more?

"He means it. I'm sure he does. It's a question of face, pure and simple. He can't give in."

CaptainWaggett

The obituary in the Times says Aberdeen though he was partly educated in Canada.

JD_Fan

The pressbook says he was born in Canada and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Who knows?!

"He means it. I'm sure he does. It's a question of face, pure and simple. He can't give in."

Steve Crook

If there's a variation in the information, press books are usually the least reliable. They're about publicity, not facts

Steve

CaptainWaggett

For what it's worth, here's the obituary.


James Robert MacGeorge Donald, actor, died at his home in Wiltshire on August 3 aged 76. He was born in Aberdeen on May 18, 1917. JAMES DONALD, who rose to fame in 1943 when he created the role of Roland Maule in Noel Coward's Present Laughter, was a stage actor before anything else, although he is better remembered today for his film roles as military officers, like the doctor in David Lean's distinguished film of PoW life in Japanese-occupied Burma, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). The last twenty years of his life were spent in an altogether different career, making wine in the heart of Wiltshire.

He was the fourth son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Dr George Donald, whose eloquent sermons and fine delivery made a strong impression on all who heard them, including young Jimmie. His mother died when he was 18 months old, and his stepmother, Adelaide Webster, who was a portrait painter with a regal, theatrical personality, became a powerful influence.

A sickly childhood in Galashiels was followed by schooling at Rossall and a brief stint at McGill University, in Montreal. The asthma that dogged most of his life necessitated his return to Scotland and a transfer to Edinburgh University. But the stage had already captured his heart. Instead of finishing his studies in moral philosophy he scandalised his family by taking to the boards, and appearing at the Edinburgh Lyceum as Thomas in The Admirable Crichton.

He then went to London to study under Michel St Denis at the London Theatre Studio, where he was a contemporary of Peter Ustinov. He first appeared on the London stage as the First Officer in Mikhail Bulgakov's drama of the Russian civil war based on his own novel, The White Guard, which was produced in an adaptation by Rodney Ackland in October 1938. It was an insignificant bit part which nevertheless drew the attention of the play's star, Marius Goring.

An enjoyable stint at the Old Vic followed in 1940. There he understudied John Gielgud in King Lear, toured with the company and went on to do a couple of West End productions before attracting the attention of Noel Coward who was looking for someone to play the comedy role in his new play, Present Laughter. Donald's huge success in the role of Roland Maule, one of the high points of wartime theatre in London, kept his memory alive during the next three years while he was in the Army decoding messages for the Intelligence Corps (crossword puzzles and chess were abiding passions).

A series of propaganda war films, including Noel Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve (1942) and Carol Reed's star-studded classic The Way Ahead (1944), kept his face before the public. He returned to the stage with great success in 1946 as Smerdyov in Peter Brook's production of The Brothers Karamazov at the Lyric, Hammersmith. The energetic and exciting role of the assassin in Jean Cocteau's The Eagle Has Two Heads, followed in 1947; the performance was memorable for a backward fall down a flight of steps. The fact that Donald could perform the fall, night after night, without a bruise was a mark of his remarkable stage technique.

A series of critically acclaimed roles followed, including Valentine in You Never Can Tell at Wyndham's, The Heiress (with Peggy Ashcroft and Ralph Richardson) and, in 1950, the lead in Laurence Olivier's production of Captain Carvallo at the old St James's. Debatably his finest stage performance, and one that roused Harold Hobson, The Sunday Times theatre critic, to describe him as one of Britain's finest actors, was his portrayal in 1954 of the tragic adventurer, Richard Gettner, opposite Edith Evans, in the beautiful Peter Brook production of Christopher Fry's The Dark is Light Enough.

Meanwhile Hollywood was beckoning. Donald had been placed under a seven-year contract by MGM in 1943 and made a series of films at Pinewood and Denham. But it was not until 1956 that he made an international impact with his portrayal of Theo, Van Gogh's long-suffering brother, in Vincente Minnelli's richly coloured, Lust for Life; Kirk Douglas played Gogh and Anthony Quinn was Gauguin.

Enormous success followed with the troublesome and difficult film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, the first of David Lean's big budget spectacles. The part of the strained prison camp doctor, Major Clipton, who tries to mediate between the insanely self-righteous Japanese and British military commanders (played by Sessue Hayakawa and Alec Guinness) was considered one of his finest film performances.

American television audiences came to know him as a seasoned and accomplished actor in a series of TV "specials" (The Tale of Two Cities, The Power and the Glory, etc). After an appearance in Kirk Douglas's The Vikings (1958) he returned to the London stage in The Doctor's Dilemma and The Wings of a Dove. The Great Escape (1963), in which he played a stiff, limping air force officer, was followed by Brian Forbes's King Rat (1965), another PoW film, and Cast A Giant Shadow (1966), about the Israeli independence movement.

Although more film credits followed, the theatre remained his first love. In 1969 he returned to the stage, appearing in the Canadian National Theatre production of The School for Scandal. But declining health forced him to take early retirement and devote the last but satisfying years of his life to growing grapes and making wine.

He is survived by his wife Ann, and a stepson.

Euryale

All the film reference books I've looked at suggest that he was indeed born in Aberdeen. And this is from his obituary in the New York Times, dated 16th August, 1993:

'Mr. Donald was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and studied at McGill and Edinburgh universities and the London Theater Studio.'


Euryale.

JD_Fan

Thanks for posting the obituary.
Many I didn`t know about him!

"He means it. I'm sure he does. It's a question of face, pure and simple. He can't give in."

EHV_Emmetts

Always seemed to play a military officer - notably Group Captain Ramsey "The SBO" in The Great Escape.