David John Stollery

David John Stollery III was born on January 18, 1941, in Los Angeles, California. He worked as a child actor before transitioning in adulthood to a career as an industrial designer.

Stollery's stage career began early. At age seven, he appeared in the 1953 Broadway production of On Borrowed Time, for which he received the Child Actor of the Year award. His film work followed, with roles in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in 1949 and Where Danger Lives in 1950. During the early 1950s, he accumulated television credits across a range of programs, among them I Love Lucy, Dragnet, My Friend Irma, The Red Skelton Show, and The Ray Milland Show.

His performance on The Ray Milland Show, in the role of The Prodigy, drew the attention of Walt Disney, who signed the fourteen-year-old to a studio contract. Stollery was cast as the lead character Marty Markham in the Spin and Marty serials, which aired on The Mickey Mouse Club between 1955 and 1957. The role became the defining credit of his acting career. His co-star in those serials was Tim Considine, who was eighteen days apart from Stollery in age.

In 2000, Stollery and Considine made cameo appearances together in The New Adventures of Spin and Marty: Suspect Behavior, a made-for-television film. On the fiftieth anniversary of the serial's premiere, both were interviewed by Leonard Maltin for a DVD bonus feature reflecting on their experiences filming the series. A DVD release of the Adventures of Spin and Marty followed in December 2005 as part of the fifth wave of the Walt Disney Treasures collection.

Following his teenage years, Stollery chose not to pursue acting as a full-time profession. He studied at the Art Center College of Design and subsequently worked as an automobile designer, first with General Motors and later with Toyota. At Toyota, he designed the second-generation A40 Series Toyota Celica, released in 1978.