Cause of death car crash Role Film actor Name Bonar Colleano | Years active 1944 – 1958 Occupation Actor | |
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Movies Pool of London, A Matter of Life and Death, Eight Iron Men, The Way to the Stars, A Tale of Five Cities Similar People Susan Shaw, Mark Colleano, Edward Dmytryk, John Gilling, Maurice Elvey | ||
Bonar colleano monologue 1930 s film 119
Bonar Colleano (14 March 1924 – 18 August 1958) was an American-born British stage and film actor.
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Early life
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. Moving to the United Kingdom, he spent several years performing in music halls. When war broke out in 1939, he began entertaining troops in Britain and was not called up for either nation's military forces.
Career
His first important role came with the popular wartime drama, The Way to the Stars (also known as Johnny in the Clouds, 1945) and later he starred in a Hollywood production, Stanley Kramer's Eight Iron Men (1952). 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, directed by Laurence Olivier and co-starring with Vivien Leigh.
In the lyrics of Ian Dury and the Blockheads' 1979 song "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3", Colleano was included in the list of reasons to be cheerful.
Personal life
He was from a well known Australian circus family and was a nephew of Con Colleano, the first tightrope walker to perform a forward somersault on the wire. In 1946, he married actress Tamara Lees, but the couple divorced in 1951. His second wife was actress Susan Shaw, who descended into alcoholism after his death. Their son Mark Colleano is also an actor. In 1950, while living in the U.K., he fathered future Average White Band drummer, Robbie McIntosh. Colleano was not married to McIntosh's mother.
Death
Colleano died in 1958 at the age of 34, when he crashed his sports car (a Jaguar XK140) in Birkenhead shortly after leaving the Queensway Tunnel. He was 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, requiring 98 stitches, but eventually recovered.