Bonar Colleano
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Bonar Colleano (14 March 1924 - 18 August 1958) was a charismatic, American-born British stage and motion-picture performer.
Colleano was born Bonar Sullivan in New York City. Following childhood experiences with the Ringling Brothers Circus and in his family's famous circus, he entered films in 1944.
He set up British residency, spending the next several years performing in music halls, the legitimate stage, and radio.
After years of playing caricatured Americans in British films, his first important role came with the popular wartime drama, The Way to the Stars, also known as Johnny in the Clouds, and later he starred in American production, Stanley Kramer's Eight Iron Men. His later screen roles included Lenny, in the oddball Shakespeare derivation Joe MacBeth (1955).
Colleano's stage work included the role of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Aldwych Theatre, London, with Vivien Leigh.
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[edit] Family
In 1946 he married actress Tamera Lees, but the couple eventually divorced in 1951. His second wife was actress Susan Shaw, who declined into alcoholism after his death. Their son, Mark Colleano, would become an actor as well.
[edit] Death
Colleano died, aged 34, when he crashed his sports car driving back from Liverpool's New Shakespeare Theatre, where he had been appearing in a stage production of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. His passenger, fellow actor and friend Michael Balfour, required 98 stitches, but he eventually recovered.
[edit] Filmography
- The Way to the Stars (1945)
- Wanted for Murder (1946)
- A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven) (1946)
- While the Sun Shines (1947)
- Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)
- Good Time Girl (1948)
- One Night with You (1948)
- Merry-Go-Round (1948)
- Once a Jolly Swagman (1948)
- Give Us This Day (1949)
- Dance Hall (1950)
- A Tale of Five Cities (1951)
- Pool of London (1951)
- Eight Iron Men (1952)
- Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? (1952)
- Escape by Night (1953)
- The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954)
- The Flame and the Flesh (1954)
- Time Is My Enemy(1954)
- Joe MacBeth (1955)
- Zarak (1956)
- Stars in Your Eyes (1956)
- Interpol (1957)
- Fire Down Below (1957)
- The Man Inside (1958)
- No Time to Die (1958)
- Death Over My Shoulder (1958)
- Doomsday for Dyson (1958)
- Them Nice Americans (1958)
[edit] Reference
- Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies ISBN 0-06-093507-3
[edit] External link
- Bonar Colleano at the Internet Movie Database
- Bonar Colleano at the BFI's Screenonline
