Donald Henry Pleasance is a famous British film and theater actor, director, nominee for the Tony and Saturn awards, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He is well known for his roles in the films You Only Live Twice, Dead End, Halloween, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Twilight Zone.
In the creative biography of the actor, there are more than two hundred roles in television and film projects. He also participated in the famous Saturday Night Live Show, The David Frost Show and Academy Awards, Tony Awards.
Balding, short, with piercing blue eyes hidden under round steel-rimmed glasses, Donald had all the qualities needed to become a great villainous actor. It was in such images that the audience remembered him, who enjoyed Pleasant's talent for more than a dozen years.
Biography facts
The future actor was born in England in the fall of 1919. Almost all of his family worked on the railroad. Grandfather was a signalman, father and brother were chiefs of railway stations. Donald himself also worked as a clerk at one of the stations for some time, until he got the opportunity to start his acting career.
Donald has always been drawn to art. He dreamed that one day he would join a theater troupe and start performing on stage. In his hometown, where the young man grew up, there was no opportunity to study acting. Therefore, Donald wrote letters to many theaters asking them to invite him to audition. He received over forty rejections before achieving the desired goal.
In 1939, he was lucky: he was hired by one of the theater groups on the island of Jersey. Just before the outbreak of World War II, Pleasure made his debut on stage in the play "Wuthering Heights". Then he played a role in Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night". His further career was interrupted by conscription. He joined the British Royal Air Force.
During the war, Donald was a radio operator on Lancaster bombers with Air Force 166th Squadron. In the fall of 1944, his plane was shot down. Pleasens was captured by the Nazis. He spent several months in prison, and then was sent to a German prisoner of war camp, where he remained until the very end of the war. He managed to survive and return to his homeland in early 1946.
Creative way
Almost immediately after repatriation, Donald returned to the stage. Already in 1946 he played in the play "The Brothers Karamazov" together with the famous British actor Alec Guinness. At the opening of the season, he was unable to join the troupe due to the fact that he contracted measles. But immediately after recovering, he went on a tour with the company of Laurence Olivier. He has performed on Broadway, appearing in several well-known performances.
In the early 1950s, Pleasance began acting in films. At first, these were small roles in inconspicuous films.
In the initial period of work in the cinema, Donald was seen only once, playing Prince John in the series "The Adventures of Robin Hood." A good role was also in the film "Circus of Horrors", where he played Vane - the director of the circus. But the actor did not receive wide popularity in those years.
Only a few years later, real international recognition came to him. Plesens landed a role in the military drama The Great Escape, which follows the escape of British and Canadian prisoners of war from a Nazi camp during World War II. Having his own experience of being in captivity, Donald managed to show the audience the real experiences of his hero. The film was nominated for the Oscar, Golden Globe and Moscow Film Festival.
The next few years, the actor worked not only in full-length films, but also in famous television series: "Beyond the Possible", "The Fugitive", "Espionage".
To play in the TV series "The Twilight Zone", which was released in screens in 1959, Please was invited to the United States. He appeared in the third season of the project, in one of the episodes called "Changing of the Guard". The actor was given only five days to read the script and immerse himself in the role of school teacher Ellis Fowler, who is forcibly sent into retirement on Christmas Eve.
Fowler is completely devastated and considers himself a failure who could not leave any trace in this world. He prepares to commit suicide, but at this moment a call is heard from the school with an invitation to come to the class. There, the teacher encounters the spirits of deceased students, who tell him about the influence that he had on the formation of their views, and show how important he has been doing all his life. After this meeting, the teacher proudly accepts his resignation.
The role of the teacher, played by Pleasens, became one of the most interesting and poignant in the thirty-minute episode.
In the late 1970s, Pleasant first appeared in the horror film Halloween as Dr. Sam Loomis. In the future, he played in all of his sequels, up to 1995. For this role, he received the largest fee among the actors who played in the project, he was equal to $ 20 thousand dollars.
In the further career of Pleasens there were roles in many famous films, including: "Dracula", "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Monsters Club", "Escape from New York", "Intriguer", "Arc de Triomphe", " Second Screen”,“Ray Bradbury Theater”,“Lovejoy”,“Shadows and Fog”,“Hour of the Pig”.
The actor passed away in the winter of 1995 at the age of seventy-five. The last roles he played in the films: "Halloween 6", "Safe Shelter".
Personal life
Pleasens has been married four times.
The first wife was Miriam Raymond. They formalized the relationship in 1941 and divorced in 1958. During their life together, the couple had two daughters.
The second wife, Josephine Crombie, also gave birth to two girls to Donald. The marriage lasted from 1959 to 1970.
With his third wife, Meira Shore, Pleasance formalized the relationship in the fall of 1970. They lived together until February 1988. In this marriage, a girl was born again.
The last wife was Linda Kentwood. The wedding took place in January 1989. Linda stayed with her husband until his death in February 1995. The couple had no children.
