Tall, slim, remote and boyishly handsome, one of Keir Dullea’s most arresting features are his pale blue eyes and, at one time, they were featured all over the screen in a number of watershed films of the 1960s. A major, up-and-coming, film star from the “Camelot” years straight through the turbulent Vietnam era, he never quite reached his peak. His shining star may have suffered a power outage into the next decade, but he persevered quite well on TV and (especially) the stage in a career now surpassing five decades.
Dullea, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of two bookstore owners, and he was raised in New York’s Greenwich Village section. He graduated from George School in Pennsylvania and attended both Rutgers and San Francisco State before deciding to pursue summer stock and regional theatre. Attending the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his New York City acting debut in a production of Sticks and Bones in 1956. His first big break came with the pilot program… read more
Tall, slim, remote and boyishly handsome, one of Keir Dullea’s most arresting features are his pale blue eyes and, at one time, they were featured all over the screen in a number of watershed films of the 1960s. A major, up-and-coming, film star from the “Camelot” years straight through the turbulent Vietnam era, he never quite reached his peak. His shining star may have suffered a power outage into the next decade, but he persevered quite well on TV and (especially) the stage in a career now surpassing five decades.
Dullea, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of two bookstore owners, and he was raised in New York’s Greenwich Village section. He graduated from George School in Pennsylvania and attended both Rutgers and San Francisco State before deciding to pursue summer stock and regional theatre. Attending the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his New York City acting debut in a production of Sticks and Bones in 1956. His first big break came with the pilot program of the Route 66 series, and he proceeded to find other TV roles in The Naked City, Checkmate, and various dramatic programs.
Following stage work in Season of Choice (1959) and A Short Happy Life (1961), Dullea made an auspicious film debut in a leading role with Hoodlum Priest (1961), playing a troubled street gang member who crosses paths with Don Murray’s determined minister. The young actor’s characters from then on seemed to walk a dangerous tightrope of emotions, and his apparent versatility at such a young age led him to a number of other psychologically scarred portrayals. Tending to play roles of men younger than he really was, none were more disturbed than his aphephobic teenager David (Dullea was 26 years old at that time) in the deeply-felt love story David and Lisa (1962). Paired beautifully with Janet Margolin’s schizophrenic Lisa, Dullear won the Golden Globe Award for “Most Promising Male Newcomer”.
In the World War II military drama The Thin Red Line (1964), Dullea played an edgy, nervous-eyed private who is pushed to his murderous brink by a brutal sergeant on Guadacanal. In Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), Dullea portrayed the incest-inclined brother of Carol Lynley, who may or may not figure into the disappearance of Lynley’s child. Keir also co-starred as the mysterious intruder who inserts an emotional wedge between the two lesbian lovers Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis in the groundbreaking film about homosexuals, The Fox (1967).
Topping that off, Dullea played the salacious Marquis De Sade himself in a relatively tame, internationally-flavored production of De Sade (1969). The apex of his film career, however, came with his lead role in Stanley Kubrick’s epic science-fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), as the astronaut Dr. David Bowman.
In the realm of stage acting, Keir made his debut on Broadway in 1967 with Dr. Cook’s Garden co-starring Burl Ives, and Dullea won some “flower power” stardom two years later as a sensitive young blind man who attempted to wriggle free of his protective, overbearing mother. His character also pursues love with a free-spirited girl, played by Blythe Danner, in the play Butterflies Are Free. By the time that the movie version of this story was published in 1972, both of stars had been replaced by the actress Goldie Hawn and the actor Edward Albert.
Dullea next went abroad to seek film work in England and in Canada, but with lukewarm results for him. Dullea continued to show his odd-man-out appeal on the Broadway state as Brick in 1970, and in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1974, acting along with Elizabeth Ashley as “Maggie”, and in the black comedy P. S. Your Cat Is Dead! one year later.
In the years since then, Dullea has acted steadily on the stage in New York City, and in American regional theaters, with the productions of the plays Sweet Prince, The Seagull, and The Little Foxes, etc. His cinematic roles since 1970 have included another “mysterious stranger” in The Next One (1984), and Dullea also acted as “David Bowman” again in the film 2010 (1984), a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Dullea has had four wives: his first was the actress Margot Bennett, and he and his third wife, Susie Fuller (whom he met during the British performances of Butterflies are Free in London), co-founded the Theater Artists Workshop of Westport in 1983. Dullea, Fuller, and her two children resided in London for quite a while. After Fuller’s death in 1998, Dullea got married his fourth time in 1999 to the actress Mia Dillon, who is best known for portraying the character “Babe” in in the play, Crimes of the Heart in New York City. Just a few weeks later, they appeared together in performing the play Deathtrap.
Dullea has worked infrequently in television roles. Among his more recent work in movies has been the role of a senator in the movie The Good Shepherd (2006), along with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, which was directed by Robert De Niro.
