- Britain’s biggest stage, radio and film star of the early sound era
- Carved internationally renowned career despite lifelong ill-health
- Hollywood and Broadway beckoned but he resisted big money offers
- Mostly worked in beloved home country but still achieved stateside success
- He even won the Academy Award for Best Actor in Hollywood’s Greatest Year
- Made many prestigious and acclaimed radio broadcasts, some of which survive
- Many featured his love of classic poetry, which he also recorded privately
- Comprehensive collections of his definitive readings are now available
Robert Donat Collectors Guide, Part 2: 1932–1934, 3: 1935–1939, 4: 1942–1947, 5: 1948–1958
Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
Contents
Such a comfort
More tributes
“Robert Donat was as unique in his field as Mozart was in his. His composition was artless. He didn’t have an actory move in his body. His voice and speech were part of the wind. His intelligence was clear; devoid of any traps or devices. His was a radiant beauty. He glowed with decency and warmth and firm resolute justice. He was charming, forceful and delicate. Nothing showed. He breathed all the wondrous adjectives as though he were walking through a park.
One night in a pub, a lady asked for his autograph. When asked why she wanted it she said ‘because you’re such a comfort’.” – Walter Matthau
Robert Friedrich Donat (1905–1958) was, alongside Jessie Matthews, Britain’s biggest international film star of the 1930s, perhaps best known as the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and Oscar winner Goodbye, Mr. Chips. But there was much, much more to both stars and though they were quite prolific during their peak decade, for differing reasons their overall filmic output was severely curtailed, depriving us of many more classics.
Also like Matthews, Donat had a multifaceted and UK-based career, making just as big a mark on the worlds of theatre and radio. This was despite travelling to Hollywood only once, to shoot his breakout film, and fighting all contractual attempts to get him to return. And it was much appreciated; he was Jack Lemmon’s favourite screen actor, “without any frigging question,” and Spencer Tracy sent him a postcard praising his decision to stay home, “otherwise us bums would all be out of business.”
Young Master Chips: Robert Donat in his first stage appearance aged 16, in costume as Lucius in Julius Caesar at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Birmingham, 1921 (source)
Rather than repeat the well-trodden details of his life I’ll direct you to summations by others including, obviously, Wikipedia and the enthusiastic tribute site run by devoted fans Jenny Allan and Gill Fraser Lee. There is also a very thorough and authoritative biography accompanying the listing of his family papers held at the University of Manchester Library, and a shorter associated piece. Most substantial of all are two full length but now rare biographies, the second of which has a foreword by Walter Matthau, excerpted above:
- Robert Donat (1968) – J. C. Trewin
- Mr. Chips: The Life of Robert Donat (1985) – Kenneth Barrow
Surprisingly, so far there’s only been one documentary on his life: part two of the five-episode series The British Greats (1980, 50min), presented by Barry Norman and a spin-off of The Hollywood Greats. It has new interviews with many of Donat’s friends, colleagues and loved ones, including both of his wives, Ella Hall and Renée Asherson, and would make a great extra on a future release of one of his films, as would part four on Leslie Howard.
Radio and record
US 2-LP
Between 1926–1958, Donat made dozens of mostly-BBC Radio appearances in various guises but most often in character or or reading poetry, often of his choosing and with orchestral accompaniment. It’s unknown how many radio recordings survive but this is the earliest one available:
- The Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw (1938) Radio Times
His first known appearance on record is via two charity compilations with snippets of film music and dialogue, “Issued on behalf of the Cinematograph Trade Benevolent Fund”, in Donat’s case it’s The Ghost Goes West and Knight Without Armour. Incidentally, this obscure item (audio/B-side) of a similar vintage isn’t our Robert.
- VS 78rpm 10″ Voice of the Stars (1935/1936/1937)
They’re joined by a resurrected 1954 BBC Radio recording of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story The Sire de Maletroit’s Door, which also features Renée Asherson.
- Heritage MP3/2-CD Theatre Royal Vol. 6 (2016) Radio Times
Beginning in 1952, Donat starred in T. S. Eliot’s historical opus on the 1170 assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. It was thankfully preserved for prosperity by the entire cast at the conclusion of their critically acclaimed run at the Old Vic, which provided Donat with his last and finest onstage role, drawing the longest standing ovation the venerable venue had ever seen.
- Various 2-LP–alt/2-CD–alt/MP3 T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (1953) w/Old Vic Company
US Angel Records 2-LP booklet
Donat’s second and, sadly, last studio recording was a spirited rendition of six poems from T. S. Eliot’s 1939 collection of light verse, newly set to music by film and concert hall composer Alan Rawsthorne, conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. His other works include the scores for Uncle Silas, Saraband for Dead Lovers, and Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Though there have been several more recent musical recordings of the poems, the original is still definitive and deservedly much-reissued:
- EMI 10″ LP–alt/MP3/CD Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1955), also in…
- Angel/Seraphim LP Practical Cats/Twenty Sonnets/alt/alt (1982)
- EMI MP3/CD Rawsthorne: Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 2/Practical Cats (1998)
- Naxos MP3 Fifine at the Fair/Practical Cats (2000)
- EMI CD Peter and the Wolf/Practical Cats/Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (2007)
Home recordings
Circa 1935 (orig)
Last and definitely not least, Donat regularly made home recordings of poetry readings for personal and professional purposes, which became the source of two posthumous collections with sleeve notes by his son, John, the second child from his first marriage. Although John became an acclaimed architectural photographer as an adult, he did have one small but notable acting role at nine years old in Jean Renoir’s superb wartime flag-waver This Land Is Mine (1943), starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara and George Sanders. There are various authorised DVDs but the region free US DVD-R, with dynamic US one sheet and window card artwork, is best. It has a transfer derived from original pre-print materials, whereas the others are from theatrical prints and all NTSC-PAL transfers. The predictable bootlegs are even worse: Italy (Golem), Spain (Miravista, New Line SD BD-R, Regia) and UK (Orbit). Clips.
- US: Warner DVD-R (2012) | Prime Video | review, TCM
- UK: Odeon DVD (2012)
- Italy: MHE DVD (2007)
- France: Éditions Montparnasse DVD (2003) review
- Spain: Manga DVD (2003), also in 5-DVD Maureen O’Hara
- Lux Radio Theatre: April 24, 1944 – Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan and Cecil B. DeMille
Favourite Poems Read at Home (1959)
UK LP
Publisher’s Note
The sad death of Robert Donat in 1958 deprived British Theatre of one of its finest actors and verse speakers. Argo thus welcomed the opportunity of issuing this recording of Robert Donat with gratitude as it enabled us to present our tribute to a fine artist. We are particularly sad that plans we were making with Robert Donat early in 1958 for a series of studio recordings were never fulfilled. The material on this record, as Robert’s son John Donat, whose help in preparing this record was invaluable, explains in his introduction below, was recorded (with the exception of the Browning extract) under home conditions in different places, at different times on different machines. Although our technicians have endeavoured to produce the best quality from each poem, sharp contrasts of quality (especially on Side One) cannot be avoided. I am sure, however, that all those who, like myself, were devoted admirers of Robert Donat will accept these technical deficiencies where they occur, with a feeling of gratitude that the recordings were made at all and have been preserved for us. – Harley J. Usill
“In the interval Master Robert Donat will recite.”
His career began as a schoolboy with recitals of poetry in North Country towns under the watchful eye of James Bernard, who patiently weaned his voice from its native Manchester. In later years his successes on stage and screen and the enormous popularity that attended them never diminished his love of poetry and especially of reading it aloud. In his most successful years as an actor he delighted in poetry broadcasts and will be particularly remembered for his own programmes of poetry at Christmas time.
It was in the latter years of his life, until his tragic death in 1958, that reading poetry assumed a new significance for him. Prevented from acting by increasingly violent attacks of asthma, he bought a tape recorder and in 1953 began to record poetry at home. Reading poetry became a creative release from the torment of his illness. The voice changes. Its soft lyrical tones become richer and capable of expressing a deeper range of emotion.
These are not performances. He projects to an intimate family audience. We are eavesdropping and he knows we are there.
When he worked on a film he would withdraw into the character and become quite inaccessible. The walls of his room were lined with complex graphs recording the rise and fall of the emotional pattern of a part. He would spend hours absorbing this and it enabled him to pick up the exact intensity of mood for a scene, usually shot out of sequence at the studios, and thereby preserve the continuity of a role. The same absorption typified his study of a poem. A far-off look would come into his eyes and he would repeat a line softly to himself, usually the key line around which the nature of a poem revolved. “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” he would say again and again to himself, as though the clue to speaking a line would eventually be revealed by the words themselves. “‘You journey now for our belief’—isn’t that a wonderful thought?” he would say, and then disappear again into the poem.
The difference between his absorption in a poem and in a character was that he seemed to be entering the spirit of the poet, until he shared the poet’s inspiration and this in turn inspired his reading.
Many times he tested Wordsworth’s On Westminster Bridge, one of the first recordings made at home, and the original tapes reveal trial after trial, some lines repeated several times, as he feels progressively towards the heart of the poem. Then a long pause. Slow difficult breathing, and the final distillation of work in which all the qualities sought after line by line are brought together in one effortless reading. He is no longer reading the poem. One senses his presence in the clear air, his eye scans the London skyline and for a moment he shares the clarity of perception revealed and expressed in the poet’s vision.
In the two-minute excerpt from The Ring and the Book, the old Pope, Innocent the Twelfth, is speaking of Pompillia, murdered by her husband at the age of seventeen. This recording for the B.B.C., which lasted for an hour, showed his astonishing ability to maintain the continuity of a long poem. Racked with asthma, in terrible difficulties, he struggled through line by line. He would break off into fits of coughing, apologise to the engineers for causing them so much trouble, and then pick up again, often in the middle of a line, finding the exact rhythm, intonation and quality of voice. The most experienced listener would find it hard to detect that it had been recorded in such a piecemeal fashion. It was the last recording he made for the B.B.C.
The Prayer of St. Francis is perhaps the most remarkable of these recordings. It is not known exactly when it was recorded, but more than any other poem this is a personal testament of faith in defiance of his trials in which the accumulated experience of his life is present. He was always as lonely as a star, but in this prayer he knows the taste of truth and touches the meaning of it all. – John Donat
- Argo LP Favourite Poems Read at Home/alt (1959)
- Argo LP Romantic and Twentieth Century Poems (1965) – both reissued as…
- Saland MP3 Robert Donat Reads His Favourite Poetry, Vols 1&2 (2009)
Romantic and Twentieth Century Poems (1965)
UK LP
In this second collection of poetry recorded at home by Robert Donat, he personally chose nearly all the poems at one time or another to broadcast in his own programmes for the B.B.C. He worked hard to perfect the readings of his special favourites, putting in long hours over his tape recorder at home. So, in every sense, this record is his personal choice—the poetry he really liked speaking—the poets he knew and loved best, from the lyric Romantics to the cloying sentimentality of Coventry Patmore. Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Owen, Betjeman, de la Mare, Housman—the only conspicuous absentee- favourite is, of course, Shakespeare, but strangely enough he hardly recorded any Shakespeare at all towards the end of his life, and a wonderful reading of Venus and Adonis has, alas, been lost forever.
There are two exceptions—poems he never broadcast—The Death Bed by Siegfried Sassoon and The Queen’s Garland. The Death Bed he first recorded during the war. We used to listen to it time and again on a dreadful old scratchy 78 record which he really thought was one of the best things he had ever done. But a few weeks before he died, while he was working on his last film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, he listened to it again and was severely self-critical. He felt he had completely missed the depth, intensity and meaning of the poem—promptly sat down and recorded this powerful performance. Perhaps it is over-dramatic—even ham, but he used to say ‘If this is ham, I like ham!”
He worked at home on The Queen’s Garland in preparation for a broadcast tribute of poetry for the coronation, a project that was unfortunately abandoned.
In the last few weeks (after re-recording The Death Bed) he became obsessed with Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale. I have never known him so completely absorbed in a poem. All the time he was working on the set, and at night when he came home, he worked and worked on it quietly to himself before patiently recording tests of stanzas, lines, fragments and phrases that were tirelessly repeated over and over again.
The reading on this record was originally recorded for the British Council in 1950. It lasts just over five minutes. In the last recording he made at home it lasts for nearly ten; every line, every word is patiently explored. The reader’s contact with the poem is absolute. In spite of the incredibly slow tempo the pace never slackens, the clarity of each thought and detail never obscures his feeling for the greater structure of the poet’s design. It is not like listening to the reading of a poem at all—he is the poem.
That recording was made on faulty, warped tape. The final stanzas are lost beyond recall. The earlier, lighter weight, more lyrical reading is included here in spite of his dissatisfaction with his own performance, because he felt so closely identified with this particular poem.
It is a pity he was such a bad engineer! The recording quality for the most part is far from satisfactory. But in spite of thuds, bumps, noises off and background hum from his machine, the quality of the performance miraculously survives.
He is unlikely to be remembered as a comedian or as a clown although in fact he was both—his sense of comedy and of humour often had to be consciously suppressed during a performance. I am sorry there is so little on these tapes that reveals the lighter, more effervescent man—without it the record cannot be quite complete, but as fragments of very personal experience these readings are among his best. – John Donat
Publisher’s Note
One of the most successful records in the spoken word catalogue is called Robert Donat reads Poems at Home and Poems for Christmas (RG 192), published by Argo shortly after his tragically early death. The warmth and character of Robert Donat shone through this record, and we are happy to be able to answer many requests for another record with this present issue. The notes by John Donat describe very adequately the circumstances in which this record was made. Our engineers have done their best with the tapes and I know that all who buy this record will make allowances for some poor technical quality including distortion in the poem Spring Offensive. The Queen’s Garland was originally suggested to Robert by Argo as part of an LP to be made during coronation year. It may be that Robert was also planning a broadcast. We join with John Donat in regretting that Robert never in fact made recordings for Argo under studio conditions although these were discussed from time to time. – Harley J. Usill
- Argo LP Favourite Poems Read at Home/alt (1959)
- Argo LP Romantic and Twentieth Century Poems (1965) – both reissued as…
- Saland MP3 Robert Donat Reads His Favourite Poetry, Vols 1&2 (2009)
Robert Donat Collectors Guide, Part 2: 1932–1934, 3: 1935–1939, 4: 1942–1947, 5: 1948–1958
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