Want to know the best Troy Donahue movies? How about the worst Troy Donahue movies? Curious about Troy Donahue box office grosses or which Troy Donahue movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Troy Donahue movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Troy Donahue (1936-2001) was an American actor and singer. He was a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s. His IMDb page shows 101 acting credits from 1954 to 2001. This page will rank Troy Donahue movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows and his direct to video movies (a bunch of them) were not included in the main table.
Troy Donahue Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
Troy Donahue Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies any way you want.
- Sort Troy Donahue movies by his co-stars
- Sort Troy Donahue movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Troy Donahue movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Troy Donahue movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Troy Donahue movie received.
- Sort Troy Donahue movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Check out Troy Donahue‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
The final lines of my previous post should have read
“I therefore think it important that he has this new page in the all-embracive range of profiles now being provided by Cogerson.”
Apologies for spelling error.
Hey Bob…..did a bunch of website host updates….and it looks like they have taken away my options of fixing errors in comments….so I am unable at this time to fix your last sentence.
With the back-to-back hits A Summer Place/Parrish/Susan Slade [all of which I enjoyed] backed up with heavy promotion Troy appeared to be “on his way”; but his career as a serious contender for top stardom seemed to collapse almost overnight with the awful 1965 My Blood Runs Cold directed by actor William Conrad who had a hit TV series in the title role of the detective Cannon [1971-76]. I saw My Blood Runs Cold over here on the 2nd half of a double bill with Charlie Bill Stuart’s 1964 romantic comedy Dear Heart.***
I had forgotten that Troy was in Godfather 2 a rerun of which I’m about to watch with my grandson [our having watched Godpop One together last week]. DeNiro of course leapt to prominence as a star by playing in flashback the young Brando/Don Corleone from Part One. Marlon himself was sought for a flashback cameo in Part 2 but he made the producers “an offer [that they had to] refuse”: he demanded too much money though his agent quipped that he was really a “man for just originals”.
However all was not lost because in flashback the Corleone family are gathered round the dinner table in Part 2 when it is announced that Brando/Don Corleone has just arrived in the next room and there is much clapping and outpouring of affection. It strikes me that if Willis/Loy characters were briefly heralded unseen off camera in a movie those two would have been credited with its gross on this site; but Brando is of course “just another guy around here”.
Wikipedia credits Troy with 34 television appearances from 1958-1999 [which include some of my own faves such as Ironside and The Virginian] and 3 stage plays: Stalag 17 [1953] Owl and The Pussycat [1966] and Poor Richard [1967]. *** On the big screen he reached 24th and 20th respectively in 1961 and 1963 in the Quigley polls of the Top 25 movie stars in the US and before that in 1960 exhibitors had voted him “the 5th most likely star of tomorrow”. He is one of the main “markers” of a certain era of Hollywood’s history and I therefore think it important that he has this new page in the all-embrasive range of profiles now being provided by Cogerson.
Hey Bob. Thanks for the additional information on Troy Donahue. Interesting about him getting blackballed by Warners. Thanks for the mini-review of My Blood Runs Cold….I will be sure to avoid that one. Good further information on his television appearances, his Quigley rankings and his predictions for greatness. He did enough to make Joel’s book…..now that is something to be proud of….and now he has an UMR page. Good stuff as always.
As Joel’s comments to an extent for once accurately reflect Troy’s heyday belonged to the “peaches and cream” era of Hollywood when ‘pure’ young men and women with gorgeous looks almost too good to be true were being put into juvenile movie leads as Troy and Sandra Dee were in A Summer Place. Indeed Troy and Sandra along with my poor Doris are performers from the past who are sent up as morally ‘dated’ in the Sandra Dee song in 1978’s Grease:
Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee
Lousy with virginity
Won’t go to bed ’til I’m legally wed
I can’t; I’m Sandra Dee
Watch it! Hey I’m Doris Day
I was not brought up that way
Won’t come across,
Even Rock Hudson lost
His heart to Doris Day
I don’t drink (no)
Or swear (no)
Keep your filthy paws
Off my silky draws
As for you Troy Donahue,
I know what you wanna do
I’m no object of lust
I’m just plain Sandra Dee
Nowadays of course clothes are being ripped off even on TV in one’s own living room from almost the opening scene and guys like Willis are bombarding us with a tirade of four-letter words that are their own endearing speciality.
Hey Bob….thanks for the comments on our Troy Donahue page. Always good to see you seeing the light of Joel’s wisdom….lol. Good song lyrics from Grease….I do not think I have caught those lyrics when I have seen Grease. Good stuff as always.
“Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee” is the seventh track on the Grease Original Soundtrack made for the 1978 film adaptation of the 1971 musical, performed by Stockyard Channing as her character Rizzo. “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” depicts Rizzo mocking Sandy for being a pure virgin that never tries to do anything “unwholesome.” Rizzo does this during a slumber party at Frenchy’s house with the rest of her Pink Ladies, while Sandy was elsewhere in the house. However Sandy walks in at the close of Rizzo’s singing and demands of her “Are you making fun of me?”
Nevertheless Sandy has had a wake-up call and at the end of the film Sandy played by Olivia Newton John in order to appeal to Travolta sheds her good girl image and turns into a “swinger” who dresses up in teasing saucy leather gear and sings a fond farewell to ‘Sandra Dee’.
“Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee (Reprise)”
(from “Grease” soundtrack)
Look at me, there has to be
Something more than what they see
Wholesome and pure
Oh so scared and unsure
A poor man’s Sandra Dee
Sandy, you must start anew
Don’t you know what you must do?
Hold your head high
Take a deep breath and sigh,
“Goodbye to Sandra Dee.”
Great UMR Page
Thank you Mike.
Troy Donahue was Tab Hunter’s replacement. Tall and blond, with choir-boy features, he usually substituted sincerity for dramatic ability. Even in bad films, he had the aura of a star.
3 Star Troy Donahue Movies – Rating The Movie Stars Book (1983)
1959’s A Summer Place
1961’s Susan Slade
1962’s Rome Adventure
1964’s A Distant Trumpet
1974’s Cockfighter
1974’s The Godfather Part 2
***No 4 Star Performances
Joel subjects are dwindling and dwindling…now down to 24 actors and actresses.
I have seen 5 of his movies….The Godfather Part 2, Imitation of Life, A Summer Place, Grandview USA and Cry-Baby. I do not remember his part in Grandview USA at all.