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Brian Donlevy was born Grosson Brian Donlevy on February 9, 1901 in Portadown in County Armagh, Ireland. His father was a whiskey distiller. When Donlevy was ten months old, his family emigrated to America, settling in Sheboygan Falls, Wis. His father took a job in the woolen industry. In 1916, Donlevy ran away from home to join General Pershing's forces fighting Pancho Villa in Mexico.
Donlevy enrolled briefly at St. John's Military Academy in Delafield.
Brian Donlevy gave up on a military career for the stage and after having landed several smaller roles, he got a part in "What Price Glory" and established himself as a bona fide actor. Later such roles on stage as "Three for One", "The Milky Way" and "Life Begins at 8:30" gave him the experience to head off to Hollywood.
Donlevy began his Hollywood career with the silent film A Man of Quality (1926) and his first talkie was Gentlemen of the Press (1929). There was a five- to six-year gap before he reappeared on the film scene in 1935 with three pictures: Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), Another Face (1935) and Barbary Coast (1935), which was his springboard into film history. Receiving rave reviews as "the tough guy all in black", acting jobs finally began to roll his way.
In 1936 he starred in seven films, including Strike Me Pink (1936), in which he played the tough guy to Eddie Cantor's sweet bumpkin Eddie Pink. In all, from 1926 to 1969 Donlevy starred in at least 89 films, reprising one of his Broadway roles as a prizefighter in The Milky Way (1940), and had his own television series (which he also produced), Dangerous Assignment (1952).
The Great McGinty (1940), a Preston Sturges comedy about a poor homeless slob who makes it to Governor of a state with the mob's help, is a brilliant character study of a man and the changes he goes through to please himself, those around him and, eventually, the woman he loves. A line in the film, spoken by Mrs. McGinty, seems a fitting description of the majority of roles Brian Donlevy would play throughout his career: ". . . You're a tough guy, McGinty, not a wrong guy."
By 1935 Donlevy was working for 20th Century-Fox and had just completed filming 36 Hours to Kill (1936) when he became engaged to young singer Marjorie Lane, and they married the next year.
After his last film, Pit Stop (1969), he retired to Palm Springs, CA, where he began to write short stories and had his income well supplemented from a prosperous California tungsten mine he owned. Having gone in for throat surgery in 1971 he re-entered the Motion Picture County Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, on March 10th, 1972. Less than a month later, on April 6, he passed away from cancer.
Brian Donlevy had always derived great pleasure from his two diverse interests - gold mining and writing poetry.
Donlevy's ability to make the roughest edge of any character have a soft side was his calling card. He perfected it and no one has quite mastered it since.
On December 22, 1936, Donlevy married singer Marjorie Lane; they had one child. His marriage to Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Yvonne Grey, whom he married in 1929, had ended in divorce earlier that year.
Also in 1947, Donlevy's second marriage ended in divorce.
In 1966, he married Lillian Lugosi, the former wife of horror-film star Bela Lugosi.
