Donald o'connor cause of death

Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was born on August 28, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois and died on September 27, 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was an American actor, singer and dancer who became famous in a series of movies in which he costarred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule.

He is best known today for his role as Don Lockwood’s friend and colleague Cosmo Brown in Singin’ in the Rain.

O’Connor was the seventh son of circus performers who went into vaudeville. His Irish-born father, John “Chuck” O’Connor, who died when his son was six months old, was a circus strongman and acrobat; his mother a bareback rider.

Donald, who never went to school, joined the family act as soon as he could walk, though he admitted not having sung until he was two years old.

He made his screen debut at 11, in a speciality routine in Melody For Two (1937) with two of his older brothers and, the following year, signed up with Paramount, for whom he made a doz