1. Troy Donahue's father was Frederick Merle Johnson, the Production Chief of promotional motion pictures of General Motors.
108 Facts About Troy Donahue
1. 2.
Troy Donahue's mother, Edith "Dede" Johnson, was a Swedish retired stage actress.
3.
Troy Donahue's sister, Eve, was born a year after the move.
4.
On December 5,1950, Frederick died in St Alban's Hospital in New York City when Troy Donahue was 14 years old.
5.
Troy Donahue was to attend West Point, but suffered a knee injury at a track meet, knocking it out of the joint and tearing the cartilage.
6.
Troy Donahue volunteered for the United States Army, but was rejected due to his permanently damaged knee.
7.
Troy Donahue wrote for the school paper, eventually ending up as the editor.
8.
When Troy Donahue was 18, he moved back to New York and got a job as a messenger for Sound Masters, a commercial film company that his father had founded.
9.
Troy Donahue acted in summer stock in Bucks County and trained briefly with Ezra Stone, an American actor, director, and a family friend.
10.
Troy Donahue would move around different cheap hotels, refusing to move back in with his mother and sister - who had both moved back to New York.
11.
Troy Donahue would visit occasionally to eat a meal there.
12.
Troy Donahue was fired from his job at Sound Masters, after being promoted to film cutter, due to being too young to join the union.
13.
Troy Donahue wrote a letter to Darrell Brady, a family friend and working associate of his father, who managed a film company, Commercial Film Industries.
14.
Troy Donahue invited Donahue to stay at his home until he found a proper place to live.
15.
In February 1956, Troy Donahue moved to Calabasas, California and stayed in Brady's home.
16.
The weekend before the big meeting, Troy Donahue suffered a near-fatal auto accident, plummeting 40 feet down into a canyon and smashing into a tree.
17.
Troy Donahue was hospitalized for various injuries, missing the test.
18.
Later that year, Troy Donahue was introduced to actress Fran Bennett.
19.
Troy Donahue signed a six-month contract, including extension options, with Universal Studios in October 1956.
20.
Troy Donahue earned a $125 weekly salary and with that, moved to North Hollywood.
21.
Troy Donahue started off in small roles in films such as Man Afraid, Man of a Thousand Faces, The Tarnished Angels, Above All Things, and The Monolith Monsters.
22.
Troy Donahue had spent all his money and had no work, leaving him unable to pay for his apartment.
23.
Troy Donahue began appearing on TV in a guest part in Man Without a Gun.
24.
Troy Donahue often had better roles on TV, guest-starring in episodes of The Californians, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Tales of Wells Fargo, and The Virginian.
25.
The big break of Troy Donahue's career came when he was cast opposite Sandra Dee in the 1959 Warner Bros' film A Summer Place, directed by Delmer Daves.
26.
Troy Donahue guest starred in a variety of their western television series, including Colt.
27.
Troy Donahue had a support part in a disaster movie, The Crowded Sky.
28.
Troy Donahue achieved good reviews for a brief, but effective part in Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, playing Frankie, a young white man who beats his new girlfriend after he discovers she is black.
29.
Troy Donahue had a brief tenure as a recording artist at the height of his fame in the early 1960s, releasing a handful of singles for Warner Bros.
30.
Troy Donahue was reportedly going to be cast in Elia Kazan's 1961 American period drama Splendor in the Grass, but missed out to Warren Beatty.
31.
On Surfside 6, Troy Donahue starred with Van Williams, Lee Patterson, Diane McBain, and Margarita Sierra in the ABC series, set in Miami Beach, Florida.
32.
Troy Donahue was sent on press junkets around the country to visit radio and television stations.
33.
Troy Donahue's face was plastered on merchandise - from posters to lunch boxes to board games.
34.
Troy Donahue joined Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens in the series lead.
35.
Troy Donahue struggled with acting in television, believing himself to be a movie star, as opposed to a TV star.
36.
Troy Donahue's career received another big break when Joshua Logan dropped out as director of Parrish.
37.
Troy Donahue did appear in a nearly beach-party film, Palm Springs Weekend, alongside several other Warner Bros.
38.
In 1965, Troy Donahue was cast as a psychopathic killer opposite Joey Heatherton in William Conrad's My Blood Runs Cold.
39.
Troy Donahue appeared in a variety of smaller projects, including a spy spoof, Come Spy with Me ; a British adventure tale, Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon ; and a western for Albert Zugsmith, The Phantom Gunslinger.
40.
From 1966 to 1967, Troy Donahue co-starred in an onstage production of The Owl and the Pussycat on tour with his then-wife, Valerie Allen.
41.
In 1967, Troy Donahue was slated to co-star in a Poor Richard production with Allen at the Pheasant Run Playhouse.
42.
On February 22,1968, Troy Donahue signed a long-term contract with Universal Studios for films and TV.
43.
Troy Donahue eventually lost his home and began sleeping on friends couches.
44.
Troy Donahue claimed that he "spent a lot of time judging beauty contests and opening banks" during this time.
45.
Troy Donahue was struggling to make his way in a changing Hollywood.
46.
In 1969, Troy Donahue moved from Los Angeles to New York City and into his new wife, Alma Sharpe's, Mahattan apartment.
47.
Troy Donahue was interviewed by Carol Kramer for New York Today in May 1970.
48.
Troy Donahue noted his love for astrology, belief in God and reincarnation, and that he had tried psychoanalysis.
49.
Troy Donahue starred in the 1971 Robert L Robert's film Sweet Savior as a Charles Manson-esque cult leader.
50.
Troy Donahue had roles in low-budget films such as The Last Stop, and Seizure, Oliver Stone's directorial debut.
51.
In November 1971, Troy Donahue chopped his hair, shedding his new look, and moved to Atlanta, Georgia to play a cop in Michael Meola's independent film Without Last Rights.
52.
Troy Donahue appeared in Cockfighter for director Monte Hellman.
53.
In December 1973, Troy Donahue returned to Atlanta to promote and participate in a concert at Omni Coliseum to raise money for the Wounded Knee defense fund.
54.
Troy Donahue assisted the local AIM office to generate publicity for the benefit concert which starred Paul Ortega, a Mescalero Apache.
55.
Troy Donahue acted as the Master of Ceremonies at the show which featured banjo picker John Hartford, actor Burt Reynolds, Doc and Merle Watson, Yoko Ono, several local performers, and Sacheen Little Feather.
56.
Troy Donahue's character was named Merle Johnson, a nod to Donahue's real name.
57.
Troy Donahue was paid $10,000 for the role for one week's work.
58.
Troy Donahue made his first television appearance in years as a guest star on The Merv Griffin Show in August 1974.
59.
Troy Donahue led the celebrity judge panel that included film stars Jane Withers, Janet Blair, and Terry Moore.
60.
For $5.98, the company sent a specially recorded LP album featuring Troy Donahue explaining how to get into show business.
61.
Troy Donahue acted in occasional television guest spots such as, Ellery Queen, The Hardy Boys, and CHiPs.
62.
Troy Donahue appeared in a variety of whiskey commercials for the Japanese television market.
63.
Troy Donahue's agent had let him go, professionals were not calling him, and they didn't return his calls.
64.
Troy Donahue spent months at the beach, often spending the night there in his car.
65.
Troy Donahue appeared in a supporting role in the 1984 feature film Grandview, USA.
66.
Troy Donahue appeared in John Waters' 1990 romantic comedy musical Cry-Baby, paying tribute to his idolism of the 50s.
67.
In 1997, Troy Donahue toured from January to May with Encore Attractions' production of Bye Bye Birdie.
68.
Troy Donahue starred alongside Casey Marshall, Krista Pigotti, and Chuck Ragsdale.
69.
Troy Donahue worked for Holland-America Lines, sailing for two months each year, doing a seminar discussing film and theater improvisations.
70.
Troy Donahue continued to act in films throughout the 1980s and into the late 1990s.
71.
Troy Donahue managed to escape the car and crawl back up to the road, meeting his friend who had been flung from the car and onto the road.
72.
Troy Donahue slipped in and out of consciousness for two days.
73.
In 1956, Troy Donahue met actress Judi Meredith and the two began dating.
74.
Troy Donahue allegedly became physical with Morris during arguments - including, at one point, throwing her into the pool.
75.
Troy Donahue first met Swedish actress and model Lili Kardell at a Halloween party in 1956.
76.
Troy Donahue denied Kardell's version of the events; however, he agreed that the argument did become physical.
77.
In December 1960, Troy Donahue met actress Suzanne Pleshette in New York, while dating Kardell.
78.
Troy Donahue was awarded the divorce by the Superior court in Santa Monica, California.
79.
In 1966, Troy Donahue met his second wife, actress Valerie Allen, at an audition for the film Come Spy With Me.
80.
The divorce was finalized in November 1968, with Troy Donahue agreeing to pay $14,000 then and $600 a month of alimony.
81.
Troy Donahue began dating mezzo-soprano opera singer Zheng Cao in October 1991.
82.
In 1982, Troy Donahue learned he had a son, Sean, by a woman with whom he had a brief relationship in 1969.
83.
In early 1987, Troy Donahue learned that he had another child.
84.
Troy Donahue was contacted by Janene Curtis, a woman claiming to be his daughter.
85.
Troy Donahue began drinking in the seventh grade, as a result of his father's health decline and later death.
86.
Troy Donahue stated he did not blame the Hollywood lifestyle for his drinking habit.
87.
Troy Donahue was unhappy with the trajectory of his career, fueling frustration and further drinking.
88.
In 1968, while performing for troops in Vietnam with the USO, Troy Donahue had been obtaining "mind-numbing" drugs from the nurses.
89.
Immediately upon marrying his fourth wife, Vicki Taylor, Troy Donahue began his previous self-destructive behavior.
90.
Troy Donahue drank heavily and used drugs whenever he could get his hands on them.
91.
Troy Donahue stayed away from Taylor and the apartment for days at a time, passing out at friends' homes, or more often, sleeping on the beach.
92.
Troy Donahue failed to show up for scheduled auditions, or arrived looking disheveled and hungover.
93.
Troy Donahue's drinking sent him to the hospital again for several days in early summer with a painful recurrence of pancreatitis.
94.
Troy Donahue made a drunken, stumbling spectacle of himself, and dozens of photographers captured his antics.
95.
Troy Donahue was again hospitalized for nearly two weeks with pancreatitis.
96.
Troy Donahue was almost twenty years sober when he died in 2001.
97.
In 1958, Troy Donahue received five speeding tickets that all went ignored.
98.
Troy Donahue's accountant had prepared the actor's 1964 income tax return.
99.
At the time, Troy Donahue was involved in his divorce from Suzanne Pleshette.
100.
Troy Donahue recounted the story differently, however agreed that blows were inflicted between the two.
101.
On January 16,1963, Troy Donahue filed a $200,000 lawsuit in Santa Monica against Modern Screen magazine, Dell Publishing Co.
102.
Troy Donahue protested that the article described them as better friends than they really were.
103.
Troy Donahue's lawyer said they were only casually acquainted and had met only once, when Becker interviewed Donahue for a teen magazine.
104.
Troy Donahue's action claimed that the story violated privacy and said the statements in the article were "unjustified and untrue".
105.
Troy Donahue did not appear at the pleadings, and Allen was not named in the suit.
106.
An emergency angioplasty was performed successfully; however, Troy Donahue suffered a second heart attack.
107.
Curtis petitioned the court to restore her rights on the basis that Troy Donahue had openly accepted her as his daughter before his death.
108.
The trial court ruled in Curtis' favor, finding that O'Neill had acted negligent for failing to learn legal impediments against Curtis, in addition to her previously stating she did not want the recovered funds, believing Troy Donahue would want Curtis to have it.