James Donald
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- May 18, 1917
- Died
- August 3, 1993
- Birthplace
- Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia James Donald (18 May 1917 - 3 August 1993) was a Scottish actor. Tall and gaunt, he specialised in playing authority figures; military officers, doctors or scientists. Donald was born in Aberdeen, and made his first professional stage appearance sometime in the late-1930s, having been educated at Rossall School on Lancashire's Fylde coast. During World War II he appeared in minor roles in such propaganda classics as In Which We Serve (1942), Went the Day Well? (1942) and The Way Ahead (1944), and he played Mr. Winkle in the 1952 film version of The Pickwick Papers. However, leading roles eluded him until Lust for Life (1956), in which he played Theo Van Gogh. His work in the theatre included Noël Coward's Present Laughter (1943) which starred Coward himself, and The Eagle with Two Heads (1947), You Never Can Tell (1948), and The Heiress (1949) with Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and Donald Sinden. He memorably portrayed Major Clipton, the doctor who expresses grave doubts about the sanity of Col. Nicholson's (Alec Guinness) efforts to build the bridge in order to show up his Japanese captors, in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). The final words are his: "Madness!, Madness!" He also played Group Captain Ramsey, the Senior British Officer in The Great Escape (1963), as well as supporting roles in other notable films both in Britain and the United States, including The Vikings (1958), King Rat (1965), Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967). Donald starred in a 1960 television adaptation of A. J. Cronin's The Citadel and appeared regularly in many other television dramas in the UK and USA, as well as on stage. In 1961, he played Prince Albert opposite Julie Harris's Queen Victoria, in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Laurence Housman's play Victoria Regina. Description above from the Wikipedia article James Donald, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
Doc in the Box 2015
as Crabs Guy
Hammer: The Studio That Dripped Blood 1987
as Dr. Mathew Roney (archive footage)
The Big Sleep 1978
as Inspector Gregory
Conduct Unbecoming 1975
as The Doctor
David Copperfield 1969
as Mr. Murdstone
Destiny of a Spy 1969
as Sir Martin Rolfe
The Royal Hunt of the Sun 1969
as King Carlos
Hannibal Brooks 1969
as Padre
Quatermass and the Pit 1967
as Dr. Mathew Roney
The Jokers 1967
as Col. Gurney-Simms
Cast a Giant Shadow 1966
as Maj. Safir
King Rat 1965
as Dr. Kennedy
The Great Escape 1963
as Ramsey 'The SBO'
Pygmalion 1963
as Henry Higgins
Victoria Regina 1961
as Prince Albert
The Citadel 1960
as Dr. Andrew Manson
Third Man on the Mountain 1959
as Franz Lerner
Perilous Assignment 1959
as Self
The Vikings 1958
as Lord Egbert
The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
as Maj. Clipton
Lust for Life 1956
as Theo van Gogh
Beau Brummell 1954
as Lord Edwin Mercer
The Net 1953
as Michael Heathley
The Pickwick Papers 1952
as Nathaniel Winkle
Gift Horse 1952
as Lt. Richard Jennings, No. 1
Brandy for the Parson 1952
as Bill Harper
White Corridors 1951
as Neil Marriner
Cage of Gold 1950
as Alan
Trottie True 1949
as Lord Digby Langdon
Edward, My Son 1949
as Bronton
The Small Voice 1948
as Murray Byrne
Broken Journey 1948
as Bill Haverton
The Way Ahead 1944
as Pvt. Evans Lloyd
San Demetrio London 1943
as Gunnery Officer - H.M.S. Jervis Bay
In Which We Serve 1942
as Doc
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing 1942
as (uncredited)
Credits from TMDB.