Troy Donahue (January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001) was an American film and television actor and singer. Donahue became a popular male sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s.

Biography

Donahue was married four times and had one child. His first marriage was to actress Suzanne Pleshette, with whom he had twice co-starred in films. They wed on January 5, 1964 in Beverly Hills. They divorced nine months later, that same year.

On October 21, 1966, Donahue married actress Valerie Allen in Dublin, Ireland. They separated in April 1967, and she filed for divorce in April 1968, charging him with cruelty, divorcing in November 1968.

Donahue's third marriage was to executive secretary Alma Sharpe. They married on November 15, 1969 in Roanoke, Virginia. "I couldn't take care of myself, and I knew this friend would take me under her wing," he says. They divorced in 1972.

Donahue's fourth and final marriage was to land developer Vicki Taylor. They were married in 1979 and divorced in 1981. In his final years, Donahue was in a long-term relationship with mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao, to whom he was engaged and with whom he lived in Santa Monica, California.

Donahue had a son, Sean, by a woman with whom he had a brief relationship in 1969. He only found out about the son in the early 1980s when he ran into the woman again. As he recalled in 1984:


She walked over and introduced herself and I remembered that we had been together four or five times in L.A. in 1969. Nothing serious. Just fun and games. She said, "I'm glad I saw you. I've always wanted to tell you about something. Look over there, Troy." I looked and across the room I saw a 13-year-old spitting image of what I looked like when I was young. "This is your son, Sean," she said. "He's known all his life that you are his father."... I see him every couple of weeks now.
In 1958 Donahue was jailed for 15 days for speeding. In 1961 his one-time fiancée Lili Kardell sued him for damages, claiming he had hit her without provocation.