Jack Donohue

Onetime Ziegfeld Follies chorus boy Jack Donohue was a busy Broadway choreographer during the 1930s. He came to Hollywood in 1936 to stage the dances and co-write the screenplay for the Joe E. Brown vehicle Sons o' Guns. A valuable member of MGM's Joe Pasternak musical unit of the 1940s, Donohue choreographed many a Technicolor Esther Williams extravaganza. In 1948, he was given his first opportunity to direct a picture: Close-Up, an Eagle-Lion melodrama which Donohue also co-scripted. Back at MGM, Donohue put Red Skelton through his paces in The Yellow Cab Man (1950) and Watch the Birdie (1951) before moving to Warner Bros., where he returned to musicals. During the 1950s and 1960s Donohue was one of the principal directors for Red Skelton's and Frank Sinatra's TV variety series. Jack Donohue's final big-screen musical was Disney's Babes in Toyland (1961); he closed out his directorial career with two Sinatra vehicles, Marriage on the Rocks (1965) and Assault on a Queen (1966) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide