Bonar Colleano

At age five, Manhattan-born Bonar Sullivan joined the Colleano Family circus act. As Bonar Colleano, he set up British residency at the age of 12, spending the next several years performing in music halls, the legitimate stage, and radio. Making his film bow in 1944, Colleano landed his first important role in the popular wartime drama Johnny in the Clouds. As outspoken Joe Friselli, he established his particular filmic niche as the stereotypical brash, wisecracking, gum-chewing "Yank." The apotheosis of Colleano's screen career may well have been his semicomic performance in the thrill-packed espionager Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948). After years of playing caricatured Americans in British films, he was cast in a bonafide American production, Stanley Kramer's Eight Iron Men. His later screen roles included Lenny, the "Lennox" counterpart in the oddball Shakespeare derivation Joe McBeth. He was married to British actress Susan Shaw; their son, Mark Colleano, later became an actor himself. Bonar Colleano was 34 years old when he was killed in an automobile accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide