Submitted by
Neal Lofthouse
Bonar Colleano: Personality Boy
By: Eric Barrett
Article from Picturegoer, Week ending, March 17, 1951
Bonar Colleano, the "Big I Am" of "Pool of London" wants to do
everything. He's certainly having a go.
Said Bonar Colleano, clenching cigarette holder between lips and
hising out the personal pronoun ; " I want to do everything."
Having outed with that sweeping statement, he replenished the
holder with an American-brand cigarette, lit up again and puffed away
in silence.
Not for long. Another minute and the plush drawing-room of his
parents' home off Marble Arch reverberated to the Colleano nasal
twang. And the man behind the short, clipped sentances was the subject
of the talk.
What he wants to do, how he intends doing it and what he hopes the
outcome will be - those, to him, are absorbing points for discussion.
Discuss them Colleano does, like a learned counsel pinpointing
facts for a case - Colleano's case. He has the answers pat before
you've popped the questions. That's the impression you get from his
confident, definite air.
He comes over in the flesh in much the same way as he comes over
on the screen - forceful and kind of brash. Casual too, the way his
American sailor is in 'Pool of London'. And, like the same sailor, he
has qualities which are likeable, human.
Ten minutes or so in his company and you find yourself not so much
objecting to that forcefulness as wondering - wondering what it is
this dark-haired, dark-eyed, gangling young son of a celebrated
American circus family has which so many like.
Not much later you've got the answer ; personality. He seems to
know it, too, seems to trade on it quite a bit.
"You want to do everything?" I repeated. "Everything? "
Colleano didn't bat an eyelid.
"Yep, that's it. But" - he looked at me a wee bit warily - "I say
that with due modesty, of course."
This "everything," I learnt, embraces films, plays, television,
vaudeville and road shows - the lot. Colleano thinks he's got the
versatile equipment to handle them all.
Maybe he's right. Pictures have given him status as an actor ;
shows and broadcasts have established him as a competent type for the
singing, dancing and patter lines.
But what about these screen Yanks, I wanted to know. Weren't they
bogging him down? After all, thats the way we've seen him in every
film he's made since 'The Way to the Stars'.
"I'll play any part for what its worth - I can't say any more.
Naturally, I don't approve of typed gum-sucking Joes in British films
any more than the British like seeing themselves mirrored as Colonel
Blimps in Hollywood pictures."
A new line of thought lured him away from that. He screwed up his
face and asked 'me' a question. "Why do producers fail to understand
versatility?" he wanted to know.
Something Up His Sleeve
He had the answer. Lots of film-makers, he said reprovingly,
failed to use an actor's natural talent in addition to his acting
ability.
Look at Burt Lancaster - a trained acrobat. See how they made use
of him, for instance, in that acrobatic romp, 'The Flame and the
Arrow'.
From this I gathered Colleano felt many of his other talents could
be used to some purpose in films.I gathered, further, that some time
in the future they would be. Up Colleano's sleeve are plans to form
his own film production company.
Finance - organization - the risk of the business? He'd have
that under control. He wanted to produce and direct as well as
"everything" else.
"But I shan't act in my first picture. That would be too much in
one go. I'll be content to direct and do the double act later on when
I've had more experience."
Self-confidence coupled with a little measure of caution is the
keynote of this Colleano, you'll be noting.
Maybe, if these plans ever resolve into anything, he'll be able to
do all the things he says. Certainly he has a pretty creditable
background to work on.
He made his first public act when he was five. He appeared at New
York's Palace Theatre as partner to his father and mother.
When he was a bit older he joined up with the celebrated Colleano
Family circus act, toured America and visited nearly every capital in
Europe.
In 1936 he came to Britain and got in some education at Streatham
Grammar School and at Eltham. During the war, with his family, he
helped to put on shows for troops.
Always The Yank
Competence to gag and mime and dance and sing eventually led to
his big London break in "Sweet and Low." And this brought him to
the notice of Anatole de Grunwald, who signed him for the part of Joe
Friselli in 'The Way to the Stars'.
Personally, I felt the typing he had in films such as 'A Matter of
Life and Death', 'One Night with You', 'Once a Jolly Swagman', 'Give
Us This Day' and 'Dance Hall' was much of a muchness. But Ealing has
the right idea with his casting in 'Pool of London', his latest film.
True, he comes across as the big I am of a Yank again, but this
time the brashness is tempered with a sensitivity which makes me
believe he's as competent as I suspect, he believes.
What does he work for? For the sheer love of it - nothing
else. Money? A ghastly expression of distaste made his face like a
gargoyle for the moment. "I hate money ! At least," he said, as the
Colleano features reverted to normal intensity, "I want enough for
personal comforts. No more."
In every way this fidgety twenty-six year old seems to know the
way to go. He, at least, needs no one to show 'him' the way to do what
'he' can do. The road has been signposted - by his own hands.
With his push and drive and talk and ability I daresay he'll do a
lot - even if not everything.
Sadly Bonar was to die in a car accident in Birkenhead
on 17th August 1958, aged just 34.
