//Ad libs: The great Donald


Monday, February 05, 2007

The great Donald

Some friends and I recently had a lovely retro night at the Stanford Theatre seeing "Singin' in the Rain." I won't say anything about Gene Kelly, because what can you rave about Gene Kelly that hasn't already been raved?

But I could rave for hours about Donald O'Connor, Kelly's sidekick in the flick. Comedy is arguably the hardest thing an actor can attempt, and I bow at the feet of this man's snort-inducing mastermindedness. I admit I didn't even know Donald O'Connor's name before this, but now I do. Oh, king of backflips off the wall, why aren't you still around to coach us mere mortal actors?

O'Connor was born into a vaudeville family, and it shows. His kind of acrobatic silliness set to show tunes may be out of fashion in today's movies, but I would challenge any Jim Carrey to pull it off.

So I laughed myself silly during O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" sequence. Then today I learned on IMDB that the poor guy had to take to his bed for three days after filming it. Check it out here. Then join me in fondly remembering the late Donald David Dixon Ronald O'Connor.

posted by Rebecca at 5:25 PM

2 Comments:

  • Donald O'Connor was such a great hoofer that he could dance next to Gene Kelly and not look bad by comparison. Now that's saying something.

    I always wondered who did his choreography in "Singing in the Rain," because Donald's numbers invariably had him using a prop for a female partner (a raincoat in "Good Morning" for instance). Those prop partners always met a bad end, being stomped on or thrown across the room.

    Somewhere in our great nation, someone is penning a thesis on "Misogynistic themes in Hollywood Musical Choreography of the 1940s and 1950s."

    By Anonymous Triple Threat, at 11:09 AM  

  • Here's an interesting bit of show business trivia for you. My husband, Martin Lager, a film historian, points out every time we watch "Singing in the Rain" that the hilarious "Make 'Em Laugh" was actually plaguerized from Cole Porter's "The Pirate." Irving Berlin was one of Porter's closest friends and when he was shown that number on the playback machine during the 1951 filming, he said, "Why, why, why... that's 'Be A Clown!" In his book, "The World of Entertainment, Hollywood's Greatest Musicals," (Equinox/Avon, 1975) Hugh Fordin writes: "Only a man of Cole Porter's tact and distinction would have chosen to ignore the existence of that song."
    I have truly enjoyed your blog, Rebecca. Keep up the good work.
    Cheers from Laurie Naiman's niece Sandy Naiman.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:05 PM  

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