Dullea made his debut in a television adaptation of Mrs. Miniver (1960) with Maureen O'Hara, playing the German pilot. He was also in the TV films Give Us Barabbas! (1961) and an adaptation of All Summer Long (1961).[7] He was in demand for guest appearances on television shows such as Route 66, The New Breed, Checkmate and Cain's Hundred. Dullea made his film debut in 1961 in Hoodlum Priest, cast on the strength of his work on Route 66.[8] His performance was well received. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Disney offered long-term contracts (roles in Two Weeks in Another Town and Bon Voyage) but Dullea turned both down. He did accept a non-exclusive contract with Seven Arts and shot a pilot for a series that was not picked up.[9][6] He appeared in Los Angeles on stage in The Short Happy Life.[10]
In 1965, he guest-starred as Lieutenant Kurt Muller in the episode titled "To Heinie, with Love" of Twelve O'Clock High. He took these roles to avoid being typecast as a troubled youth.[13] Dullea went to England to make Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), which co-starred Dullea with Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, and Noël Coward. Although they shared no scenes in the film, when Coward initially met Dullea on the set, he uttered the often quoted line "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow." Nonetheless he was voted one of 1965's "stars of tomorrow".[14]
Dullea played the son of Lana Turner's character in Ross Hunter's remake of Madame X (1966), which underperformed commercially. He then appeared with Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis in the Canadian box office hit, The Fox (1967).[15] His first Broadway appearance was in 1967 in Ira Levin's Dr. Cook's Garden with Burl Ives, which only had a short run.
In 1968, Dullea appeared as astronaut David Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which became a box-office success and is recognized by critics, filmmakers and audiences as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.[16] His line "Open the pod bay doors please, HAL" is #78 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 film quotes. Dullea was offered the title role in the 1969 film De Sade, playing the title role (the Marquis de Sade). The film was a critical and commercial disappointment. He had success on Broadway, starring in the 1969 hit comedy Butterflies Are Free with Eileen Heckart and Blythe Danner. In the play, he introduced the title song written by Stephen Schwartz (later recording the tune on an album for Platypus Records). The play was a huge hit, running for 1,128 performances, although Dullea did not appear in the film version.
Dullea travelled to London to be in the production of Butterflies there and decided to stay. He did a series of TV films: Black Water Gold (1970), Montserrat (1971), and A Kiss Is Just a Kiss (1971).[17] He did a thriller in Italy, Devil in the Brain (1972), and guest starred on McMillan & Wife.
Dullea worked in Canada on the film Paperback Hero (1973) and worked in that country for a number of years. He had the lead role in a Canadian TV series The Starlost (1973) but it only ran 18 episodes.[18] He was a regular voice on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which ran from 1974 to 1982. He was credited on five episodes. Dullea was in Paul and Michelle (1974) and had a major role in the Canadian production, 1974 cult classic Black Christmas as Peter Smythe, Jess Bradford’s boyfriend. Also in 1974, he played Brick in the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite Elizabeth Ashley and Fred Gwynne on Broadway which ran 160 performances. The production featured the now definitive rewrite of the play. He also starred in the 1975 play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Dullea was one of the last people to see actor Sal Mineo alive. The two were rehearsing for the play on the night of Mineo's murder.
Dullea returned to Broadway when he joined the cast of the successful Doubles (1985–86).[24] He toured with a theatre show Keir Dullea and Friends (1988).[25]
In 1990 he said "My career has a lot to do with choices I made in my life. My focus over the last, oh, at least 10 years has been the theater. I really haven't made very much effort with films. I did more than 20 plays before I ever did The Hoodlum Priest, and (after that) I've done more than 20 films... It wasn't as if the industry had fired me; I had just made certain life decisions I suddenly was having to pay the piper for. So there was no film career at all. I'm always working (in theater). If I'm not engaged on stage in something, I'm working with my wife on another project. I no longer live my life waiting for my phone to ring to give me permission to work."[24] He performed in The Servant on stage in 1990.
In summer 2002, he performed in the Washington Shakespeare Theatre's production of The Little Foxes.[28] And the following year he could be seen in Alien Hunter (2003). In December 2004, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", the Noël Coward Society invited Dullea as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's Gershwin Theatre, thereby commemorating the 105th birthday of Sir Noël. Around the same time, Sony Home Video released Bunny Lake Is Missing for the first time on DVD.
In 2006, he played Andrew Keener in Cost of Capital, which was the 16th episode, of the 16 season of the original Law & Order American television series, and he had a role as a US Senator and a "major influence and mentor" to Matt Damon's character, in Robert De Niro's film The Good Shepherd (2006). He was the narrator in an off Broadway production of Mary Rose (2007). Dullea was in The Accidental Husband (2009), All Me, All the Time (2009), Castle, Fortune (2009), and Damages.
In April 2010, Dullea performed the role of Tom Garrison in the off-Broadway production of the Robert Anderson play, I Never Sang for My Father co-starring Oscar-nominated actress Marsha Mason (as Margaret Garrison) and film and stage actor Matt Servitto (as Gene Garrison). In October 2012, Dullea performed the role of Heinrich Mann in the Guthrie Theater production of Tales from Hollywood by Christopher Hampton.
During August and September 2013, Keir Dullea starred as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing opposite wife Mia Dillon in a joint production for Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Between July 10-August 2, 2015, Dullea and wife Mia Dillon were joined by Todd Cerveris, Cameron Clifford, Don Noble and Christa Scott-Reed in the Bucks County Playhouse production of Ernest Thompson's On Golden Pond.[30]
He had a regular role in The Path (2014–16) and could be seen in Fahrenheit 451 (2018). Dullea was cast as Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood, a high-ranking UNSC officer, in the Paramount+ TV series Halo which premiered on March24,2022(2022-03-24).
Personal life
Dullea has been married four times, first to stage and film actress Margot Bennett from 1960 until their divorce in 1968. He was married from 1969 to 1970 to Susan Lessons. In 1972, Dullea married Susie Fuller, who had two daughters from a previous relationship. The couple met during the London run of Butterflies Are Free. Dullea, Fuller and her children lived in London for several years. She died in 1998 after 26 years of marriage. In 1999, Dullea married actress Mia Dillon. They divide their time between an apartment in Manhattan and a house in Connecticut.
Frederick Hubbard Gwynne was an American actor, artist, and author widely known for his roles in the 1960s television sitcoms Car 54, Where Are You? and The Munsters, as well as his later film roles in The Cotton Club, Pet Sematary, and My Cousin Vinny.
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón was a Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic American actors—or, indeed, actors of any ethnicity—during his lifetime and after, with a career spanning nearly 60 years between 1935 and 1992. He achieved prominence for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the play of the same name, which earned him the inaugural Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1947. He reprised the role in a 1950 film version and won an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first Hispanic actor and the first Puerto Rican-born to win an Academy Award.
Alfred David Lunt was an American actor and director, best known for his long stage partnership with his wife, Lynn Fontanne, from the 1920s to 1960, co-starring in Broadway and West End productions. After their marriage, they nearly always appeared together. They became known as "the Lunts" and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was a British-American actor, whose career spanned over 270 screen and stage roles across over 60 years. Born in London, he began his acting career as a child in his native England, before moving to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. He achieved prominence for his starring roles in How Green Was My Valley (1941), My Friend Flicka (1943), and Lassie Come Home (1943). Unlike many of his contemporaries, McDowall managed to transition his child stardom into adulthood, and began to appear on Broadway as well as in films, winning a Tony Award for his performance in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock. For portraying Octavian in the historical epic Cleopatra (1963), he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American actor. Kline is known for his over five decade career as a leading man on stage and screen. He is the recipient of an Academy Award and three Tony Awards, and has been nominated for two British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Marsha Mason is an American actress and theatre director. She has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Goodbye Girl (1977), Chapter Two (1979), and Only When I Laugh (1981). The first two also won her Golden Globe Awards. She was married for ten years (1973–1983) to the playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, who was the writer of three of these films.
Louis Jourdan was a French film and television actor. He was known for his suave roles in several Hollywood films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Gigi (1958), The Best of Everything (1959), The V.I.P.s (1963) and Octopussy (1983). He played Dracula in the 1977 BBC television production Count Dracula.
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He had a prolific career in character roles in film, in theatre, and on television. An early member of the Actors Studio, he began his career on the New York stage, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Robert Anderson's You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (1968). He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in A Thousand Clowns (1965).
John Soursby Glover Jr. is an American actor, known for a range of villainous roles in films and television, including Daniel Clamp in Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Lionel Luthor in Smallville. He is also the voice of Riddler in the DC Animated Universe.
Waldo Brian Donlevy was an American actor, who was noted for playing dangerous and tough characters. Usually appearing in supporting roles, among his best-known films are Beau Geste (1939), The Great McGinty (1940) and Wake Island (1942). For his role as the sadistic Sergeant Markoff in Beau Geste, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Frank A. Langella Jr. is an American actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He eschewed the career of a traditional film star by always making the stage the focal point of his career, appearing frequently on Broadway. He has received numerous accolades including four Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, an Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Gary Lockwood is an American actor. Lockwood is best known for his roles as astronaut Frank Poole in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and as Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell in the Star Trek second pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966). He starred in the only American film by French New Wave director Jacques Demy, Model Shop. He played numerous guest television roles from the early 1960s into the mid 1990s, and played the title role in The Lieutenant (1963–1964).
Tammy Lee Grimes was an American film and stage actress.
John Rubinstein is an American actor, composer and director.
Arthur Nigel Davenport was an English stage, television and film actor, best known as the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Birkenhead in the Academy Award-winning films A Man for All Seasons and Chariots of Fire, respectively.
Vivian Matalon was a British theatre director.
Mia Dillon is an American actress.
De Sade is a 1969 American-German drama film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Keir Dullea, Senta Berger and Lilli Palmer. It is based on the life of Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, named Louis Alphonse Donatien in the film.
Charles Alan Siebert was an American actor and television director. As an actor, he is best known for his role as Dr. Stanley Riverside II on the television series Trapper John, M.D., a role he portrayed from 1979 to 1986, and for his numerous appearances on the $25,000 Pyramid. After 1986, although he continued working as an actor, Siebert's career was focused on working as a director for episodic television for such shows as Xena: Warrior Princess, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
Margot Bennett is an American publicist and former actress who appeared in various stage, television and film roles between the years 1957 and 1973. She is best known for her appearances in the films O Lucky Man! and Who Killed Teddy Bear, and for being the first wife of both actor Keir Dullea and, later, actor Malcolm McDowell.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
