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Robert Donat
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Robert Donat was one of the martyrs of the acting profession, a potentially great actor hampered by ill-health, which he resolutely strove to overcome throughout his career. Though favored with romantic, even dashing good looks and a richly beautiful voice, he had initially to cope in childhood with a serious stutter. Training in elocution gradually controlled this nervous impediment, with the result that, once established as an actor, he became famous alike for his voice and his sensitivity of expression. However, he ... suffered from chronic asthma throughout his life.
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Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is a Canadian rancher on vacation in London who sees a vaudeville act at the Palladium in which Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson) draws on his photographic memory to answer questions posed by the audience. When a shot rings out in the theater a frightened young woman approaches Hannay and asks for his help. The woman claims that foreign spies who plan to smuggle valuable military secrets out of the country are after her, and when she herself is later killed, Hannay finds himself both framed as the man responsible for her death as well as the next potential victim of the spy ring. Traversing through rural Scotland, on the run from both the police and the spies, Hannay finds himself attached to a cool but reluctant blonde, and together they have to figure out the meaning of the woman's last words and bring down the spy ring before the precious military secrets are smuggled abroad. THE THIRTY NINE STEPS is the film that established Hitchcock as the master of the mystery spy-thriller.
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Robert Donat [H]ad everything an actor could hope for - except clean health. Beneficient spirits attending his cradle endowed him with good looks, a fine voice, height (6ft) exceptional elegance of demeanour. A malevolent spirit gave him chronic asthma.
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At age 11, Robert Donat began taking elocution lessons to overcome a stutter, going on to develop an exceptional and versatile voice. At 16 he debuted onstage and later played a number of Shakespearean and classical roles in repertory and touring companies; it was almost ten years... before he made his London debut. In the early '30s he attracted the attention of filmmakers, and signed a contract with Alexander Korda; almost immediately he was internationally famous for his romantic lead in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), his third film. He made one film in Hollywood but he didn't like the town or the prospect of becoming a conventional movie star. For his starring role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), in which he aged from 25 to 83 onscreen, he won the "Best Actor" Oscar. Although very successful, his career was hampered by chronic asthma and an insecure, self-doubting personality; he turned down many more films than he accepted, and for an actor of his time, his filmography is unusually thin.
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Robert Donat stars as Dr. Andrew Manson in this adaptation of A.J. Cronin's best-selling novel. Manson devotes himself to treating the residents of a poverty-stricken Welsh mining community. Tuberculosis runs rampant in the village, and Manson is determined to help stem its tide and bring good health back to people who desperately need it. While this effort may be spiritually rewarding, it isn't especially profitable, and, though Manson's wife, Christine (Rosalind Russell), stands proudly beside him, he secretly wishes that he could find a simpler and more lucrative practice elsewhere. Eventually, Manson succumbs to temptation and begins working out of London, where he looks after wealthy hypochondriacs who don't really need his services but are willing to pay from them. While Manson gains money and prestige, he has turned his back on his friends, his wife, and the people who need him most in the process.
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Robert Donat was born in Withington, Manchester on March 18th 1905. He started elocution lessons at age 11 and developed a soft but striking voice that helped him become one of England's leading film stars in the 1930s. When he was 19 he joined the theatre company of Sir Frank Benson and later joined the Liverpool Repertory Theatre.
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Robert Donat