Troy Donahue - Biography

Troy Donahue was a journalism student at Columbia University when he began playing in stock productions. He made his film debut in L'emprise de la peur (1957) and in 1959 signed as a contract player with Warner Bros., which promoted him to stardom with Ils n'ont que vingt ans... (1959) that year. He was soon a teenage heartthrob, his blond hair and blue eyes appearing frequently on the covers of movie magazines. His most successful film was La soif de la jeunesse (1961), in which he played the title character. A few years after that his career went into a decline; he made only a few television movies between the mid-'60s and his small role in Le parrain, 2ème partie (1974) (in which his character's name, Merle Johnson, was actually his real name). His later films were almost entirely for the low-budget home video market, e.g., Sexpot (1990) and Recherche comédiennes déshabillées (1990).