Keir Dullea

Keir Atwood Dullea, pronounced KEER doo-LAY, was born on May 30, 1936, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, to Margaret, née Ruttan, and Robert Dullea. His mother was of Scottish descent and his father was a second-generation Irish American. The family relocated to the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, where his parents operated a bookstore. Dullea graduated from George School in Pennsylvania, attended Rutgers University and San Francisco State University, and subsequently trained as an actor at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.

Dullea launched his professional career in television, making his debut in a 1960 adaptation of Mrs. Miniver alongside Maureen O'Hara, in which he played the German pilot. He followed that with appearances in the television films Give Us Barabbas! and All Summer Long, both in 1961, and accumulated guest credits on series including Route 66, The New Breed, Checkmate, and Cain's Hundred. His work on Route 66 led directly to his feature film debut in Hoodlum Priest in 1961. Despite receiving long-term contract offers from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Disney, he declined both, instead signing a non-exclusive deal with Seven Arts.

His film career gained significant momentum in 1962 when he starred opposite Janet Margolin in David and Lisa, a low-budget adaptation of a book by psychiatrist Theodore Isaac Rubin. The film became a breakout commercial success, earning over two million dollars, and Film Daily named Dullea its find of the year. He continued building his screen résumé through the mid-1960s, appearing in Mail Order Bride (1964), the first screen adaptation of James Jones' The Thin Red Line (1964), and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), the latter co-starring Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, and Noël Coward. He was also voted one of 1965's stars of tomorrow. In 1966 he appeared in the Ross Hunter remake of Madame X alongside Lana Turner, and in 1967 he co-starred with Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis in the Canadian production The Fox.

Dullea made his Broadway debut in 1967 in Ira Levin's Dr. Cook's Garden, opposite Burl Ives, though the production had only a short run. His Broadway career spans from 1967 to 1993 and encompasses several notable productions. In 1969 he starred in the comedy Butterflies Are Free alongside Eileen Heckart and Blythe Danner, a production that ran for 1,128 performances. During the run he introduced the title song, composed by Stephen Schwartz, and later recorded it for Platypus Records. He subsequently traveled to London to participate in the British staging of the play. In 1974 he played Brick in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite Elizabeth Ashley and Fred Gwynne, a production that ran 160 performances and featured what became the definitive rewrite of the play. The following year he starred in P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, a production during which he was among the last people to see actor Sal Mineo alive; the two had been rehearsing on the night of Mineo's murder. Dullea also appeared in The Sound of Music on Broadway, and returned to the stage in the successful production Doubles during the 1985–86 season.

The role for which Dullea is most widely recognized is that of astronaut David Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film became a major box-office success, and his line "Open the pod bay doors please, HAL" ranks at number 78 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 film quotes. He reprised the role of David Bowman in the 1984 sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact, directed by Peter Hyams, which received five Academy Award nominations. His other film credits include the 1974 Canadian cult horror film Black Christmas, in which he played Peter Smythe, and the 1969 film De Sade, in which he took the title role.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s Dullea worked extensively in Canada and internationally, appearing in Paperback Hero (1973), Welcome to Blood City (1977), The Haunting of Julia (1977), and the television films Brave New World (1980) and The Hostage Tower (1980), among others. He was a regular voice on CBS Radio Mystery Theater from 1974 to 1982, receiving credit on five episodes. He also held the lead role in the Canadian television series The Starlost in 1973, which ran for eighteen episodes.

In 1981 Dullea relocated to Westport, Connecticut. The following year he starred in an off-Broadway production of A. E. Hotchner's Sweet Prince, directed by his wife Susie Fuller. In 1983 the couple co-founded the Theater Artists Workshop of Westport. He toured with the stage show Keir Dullea and Friends in 1988 and performed in The Servant on stage in 1990. In 1992 he appeared in Oh, What a Night and played F. Scott Fitzgerald in the off-Broadway production The Other Side of Paradise. In 2000 he portrayed Audrey Hepburn's father Joseph in The Audrey Hepburn Story. Despite his prominence in film, Dullea has stated that he prefers stage work to screen performance.