Vincent J. Donehue designs and plans

1950-1963

Director Vincent J. Donehue was born on September 22, 1915 in Whitehall, New York to Julian B. Donehue and Helen E. Vincent. His father was director of redevelopment in Albany, New York. Vincent Donehue was educated at Christian Brothers Academy and the State University of New York and studied for the stage with Tamara Daykarhanova and with Fanny Bradshaw at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon, England. He made his radio debut in 1937 and in the years prior to World War II was heard on over 1500 radio shows. He also acted on Broadway during this time appearing as Cinna, the poet in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar, and in Katharine Cornell's Herod and Marianne, Guthrie McClintic's Christmas Eve, the Theatre Guild's Jeremiah, by Stefan Zweig, John Golden's The Old Foolishness by Paul Vincent Carroll, and My Fair Ladies with Betty Furness and Celeste Holm.

Donehue enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1941 and served through 1945 attaining the rank of Major. While overseas he co-authored, produced and directed a play San Francisco which toured France and Germany. After the war he and playwright Horton Foote established Productions, Inc., an acting school and professional theater repertory company in Washington D.C., sharing the responsibilities of producer, director and manager together. This repertory company staged productions ranging from J. M. Synge's Deidre of the Spirits to William Saroyan's My Heart's in the Highlands.

In 1950 Donehue signed as a director for NBC-TV's Chevrolet Theatre with Fred Coe, who had been his summer stock roommate back in 1935. Subsequently Donehue was producer-director for the Gabby Hayes Show dramas, an alternate director for Robert Montgomery Presents (1952), director of Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse (1952-1956), and Producer's Showcase (1957-1958). He staged many teleplays during TV's "golden age" including Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, Robert E. Sherwood's Reunion in Vienna, Clare Booth Luce's The Women, Paddy Chayefsky's The Big Deal, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Rudolf Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street with Katharine Cornell, and the Mary Martin production of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1960), one of the first television productions filmed on magnetic tape.

Donehue's career as a director on Broadway began with his staging of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful with Lillian Gish in 1953. This was followed by Foote's Traveling Lady (1954), Tennessee William's Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton (1955), Dore Schary's Sunrise at Campobello (1958), Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (1959), Morris L. West's Daughter of Silence (1961), S. N. Behrman's Lord Pengo (1962), Arthur Schwartz's Jennie (1963), and Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert's Catch Me If You Can (1965). He also directed two films: Lonelyhearts (1959) and Sunrise at Campobello (1960), both produced by Dore Schary.

Vincent Donehue received a Tony Award and a Film Daily Award for his direction of Sunrise at Campobello and a Director's Guild Award for his television direction of Peter Pan. He died of Hodgkins disease on January 17, 1966 in New York City. He was fifty years old.