1. James Donald's mother died when he was 18 months old and his father remarried.
22 Facts About James Donald
1. 2.
James Donald grew up in Galashiels and was educated at Rossall School on Lancashire's Fylde coast.
3.
James Donald briefly attended McGill University in Montreal but, due to asthma, he transferred to the University of Edinburgh.
4.
James Donald originally intended to be a teacher, but seeing Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Dame Edith Evans in The Late Christopher Bean made him decide to be an actor.
5.
James Donald began seeing as many shows as possible and studied at the London Theatre Studio for two years.
6.
James Donald made his stage debut in 1938 in The White Guard and he began to get work regularly on stage.
7.
James Donald appeared in Twelfth Night with Michael Redgrave and understudied John Gielgud in King Lear.
8.
In 1939, James Donald tried to enlist but a medical classified him as unfit for military service so he joined ENSA.
9.
James Donald achieved fame on stage appearing in Present Laughter by Noel Coward.
10.
James Donald joined the RASC before being assigned to British Army Intelligence, where he typed up decoded enemy messages.
11.
James Donald was in The Small Voice and MGM's Edward, My Son.
12.
James Donald had great success on stage in The Heiress with Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and James Donald Sinden.
13.
James Donald had the lead in a comedy Brandy for the Parson and supported Trevor Howard and Richard Attenborough in Gift Horse.
14.
James Donald played Mr Winkle in the 1952 film version of The Pickwick Papers.
15.
James Donald had the lead in The Net and was cast in his first Hollywood film in MGM's Beau Brummell.
16.
James Donald portrayed Major Clipton, the doctor who expresses grave doubts about the sanity of Colonel Nicholson's efforts to build the bridge in order to show up his Japanese captors, in the war film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
17.
James Donald was in much demand to play supporting roles in action and prisoner-of-war films: The Vikings ; Third Man on the Mountain ; Group Captain Ramsey, the Senior British Officer in The Great Escape ; King Rat, a doctor in a POW camp; and Cast a Giant Shadow.
18.
James Donald played a colonel in a comedy The Jokers and had a part as a heroic scientist in Quatermass and the Pit.
19.
James Donald performed Write Me a Murder on Broadway.
20.
James Donald retired from acting in part because of a lifelong asthmatic condition.
21.
James Donald died of stomach cancer on 3 August 1993 in West Tytherley, Hampshire.
22.
James Donald was survived by his wife Ann, and a stepson.