Robert Donat

Friedrich Robert Donat (18 March 1905 – 9 June 1958) was an English film and stage actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), the latter for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Donat was also a successful stage actor, despite the challenge of chronic asthma from which he suffered.

Early life and career

Donat was the fourth and youngest son born in Withington, Manchester, Lancashire, to Ernst Emil Donat (a civil engineer of Polish origin) and his wife Rose Alice (née Green). He was of English, Polish, German and French descent and was educated at Manchester's Central High School for Boys. He took elocution lessons with James Bernard.

Donat made his first stage appearance in 1921, at the age of 16, with Henry Baynton's company at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Birmingham, playing Lucius in Julius Caesar. His real break came in 1924 when he joined the company of Shakespearean actor Sir Frank Benson, where he stayed for four years. Donat married Ella Annesley Voysey (1903-1994) in 1929; the couple had three children together, but divorced in 1946