Jack Donahue

John Donahue (December 29, 1888 – October 1, 1930) was an American dancer, comedian, and musical theatre actor who worked in vaudeville, films, and on Broadway.

Life and career Born in Charlestown, Boston in 1888 (though some sources mistakenly state 1892), Jack Donahue was the eldest of seven children born to Irish immigrants Julia Buckley and Dennis Donahue. He decided to become a dancer, and left home at the age of ten to join a medicine show. He then joined a small repertory company, performing eccentric dances between acts in melodramas, before going into vaudeville.

Donahue performed soft shoe, tap and sand dancing. Initially he danced with male partners, before meeting Alice Stewart, who later became his wife. As the pairing of Donahue and Stewart, they performed a mixture of dance and comedy, with Donahue as the straight man and Stewart as a male dancer. Donahue appeared on his own in a comic role on Broadway in The Woman Haters in 1912, and again, after Stewart had retired from the stage, at the prestigious Palace Theatre in New York City in 1915. After returning to New York, he died in October 1930, from heart failure, at the age of 41. A memoir, Letters of a Hoofer to his Ma, was published posthumously. The 1949 film Look for the Silver Lining, in which Donahue was played by Ray Bolger, was loosely based on his life and that of Marilyn Miller. In 2010, the play My Vaudeville Man was also based on Donahue's life.