See my special pages devoted to my favorite Donat Films:

• The Thirty Nine Steps
• Goodbye Mr. Chips
• The Citadel

BIOGRAPHY

Robert Donat was born on March 18, 1905 in Withington, Manchester, England. In order to overcome a stutter, he began taking elocution lessons at age 11 in order to develop an exceptional and versatile voice. Because of this wonderful voice he began his stage career at age 16 in a number of Shakespearean and classic roles in repertory and touring companies. In 1924 he joined Sir Frank Benson's repertory company.

In the early 1930's he became immediately popular after signing a contract with Alexander Corda and appearing as Thomas Culpepper in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) which was only his third film. He soon after played Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and then was Richard Hannay in The Thirty Nine Steps (1935) for Alfred Hitchcock. The Thirty Nine Steps is considered a Hitchcock classic and Donat excelled in the part playing a man falsely accused of murder handcuffed to lovely Madeline Carroll.

The late thirties proved to be particularly productive and fruitful for Donat even though he didn't like Hollywood or the prospect of becoming a conventional movie star. His two most successful films of this period were The Citadel (1938) where he starred as Andrew Manson with Rosalind Russell and Goodbye Mr. Chips  (1939) with Greer Garson.  He was nominated for an Oscar for Citadel and won it for Chips.  This was quite an impressive feat in a year where his competition was unprecedented (1939 was the year of Gone With The Wind and is widely considered to be the greatest year of all time for Hollywood film).  In Goodbye Mr. Chips he had to age from 25 to 83 and he did it quite convincingly.

His career was hampered by chronic asthma and an insecure, self-doubting personality; he turned down more films then he accepted which was rare for an actor of the time.  He did very few films in the 40's and 50's and his last film was The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with Ingrid Bergman.  During this film you can almost watch him dying.  He was very ill and died on June 9, 1958, soon after the film was completed.  His last words on film are: "We shall not see each other again, I think." 

According to Donat's son, "he was cremated and his ashes placed in beautiful
Memorial Gardens in Finchley, North London. Alas, there is no memorial there to him."

You can see more information about Robert Donat at the Internet Movie Database.

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