Nothing Phony About Donovan

Reports that Arthur Donovan, All-Pro tackle, Hall of Fame member and raconteur extraordinaire, is getting a hair transplant have been greatly exaggerated. Hollywood has been calling. There’s a part that’s waiting, virtually made to order.

The movie industry is looking for a clone of Clark Gable, and Donovan fits the role. He’s in the act of growing a mustache but says he’s not going to go in for having hair grafted to his head. The decision, he says, is irrevocable.

“If I could get a new brain, I’d go for that,” he said, “but, no, I don’t need hair. What the hell you think I am? I ain’t interested in no phony hair. I haven’t got anything against hair. My other hair just wore out.”

Donovan, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is America’s newest matinee idol and also a sex symbol, although somewhat belated. His fame has become so far-reaching that at age 64 he has become recognizable for his mirth and girth.

In airports, hotel lobbies and corner saloons, men and women come up wanting to touch him. He speaks at conventions and gatherings all over the country, commanding sizable appearance fees.

There often are times when he gets more for one 15-minute speech than he made his entire rookie year in the National Football League. That was when he played for the Baltimore Colts of 1950 and made the imposing sum of $4,500 for playing seven exhibitions and 12 regular season games.

“If I could survive that,” he says, “I knew being on all those islands with the Marines in World War II wasn’t so tough, except the Japanese were using live ammunition. But about that hair, now how would I look if I let them do that to me?”

It was reliably reported, but not confirmed, that Donovan was measured for hair but that when doctors started to probe they found out his scalp wasn’t fertile enough to handle new growth. So movies are going to have to take Donovan for what he is--a jovial bundle of fun, laughter and stories that usually start with, “Now I remember the time when back in the old neighborhood . . . “

Donovan has been known to stretch a tale or two, but he insists he doesn’t embellish or enhance one of his real-life happenings. His denial about the hair transplant received similar treatment from his wife, Dorothy, and a teen-age daughter, Kelly.

“For God’s sake, no!” insisted Dorothy. “There’s no transplant. That’s far from the truth.” Then Kelly confirmed the matter in her own way by saying, “Dad has a lot of hair. He’s just not growing it.”

Representatives of Palladin Studio met with Donovan at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev., where he went for a personal appearance during Super Bowl weekend. Monetary terms and length of contract were talked about, plus some discussion of the story-line.

But Donovan, fortunately, has ruled out having holes drilled in his skull and sprigs of hair inserted so as to give him more cover on top. He doesn’t mind being cast as a dashing Lothario, a man-about-town who woos the prettiest women in the world and then breaks their hearts when he goes off to drink beer and eat hot dogs in a waterfront tap-room.

Even though there’s some resemblance, Donovan denies that in his elementary school years, as a child actor, he was the original “Spanky” in the “Our Gang” comedies.

“I remember taking the pledge of the Legion of Decency that I wouldn’t go to dirty movies and you can be sure, as a honorary member of the Knights of Columbus, that I won’t be playing in no X-rated garbage,” Donovan said.

The only shock is it took Hollywood so long to discover Donovan. He has been on the scene, but not the screen, for years. He even appeared on the set of an early Warner Brothers picture featuring Johnny Weismuller but, like so many young actors with stars in their eyes, was passed over while in quest of a supporting role.

Now he’s being proposed for a major film and, no doubt, will be an enormous hit. But back to the hair part. “I’m telling you,” he insists, “that I’m not going to let them put any kind of hair on my head, even if they use paint. They can promise me the Academy Award and I won’t do it. I’d rather be a semi-bald old football player, going around the country making speeches, than a dashing romeo singing to Jeanette MacDonald or holding Shirley Temple on my lap.”

Promoters have said that if Donovan could be equipped with a full head of hair, it would add to his box-office appeal. Meanwhile, he’s going to speech class and exercising his voice, hoping to improve his diction by reciting the Gettysburg Address with Chesapeake Bay oysters in his mouth. That’s hard to do, but he’s mastering the art of eloquence.

Reiterating, he wants nothing to do with hair. He insists he has gotten to this point of his life without being anything else but handsome and no Hollywood director is going to spoil his looks. Take Arthur Donovan as he is or leave him alone. That’s his ultimatum to those promising to put his name in marquee lights. He deserves to be applauded for taking such a stalwart stand.