Joe Donahue on AllMovie

A tall, gangly Broadway hoofer, Joe Donahue was the younger brother of one of the era's great entertainers, Jack Donahue, who had partnered Ziegfeld-star Marilyn Miller in some of her greatest successes, including Sunny (1925) and Rosalie (1928). When Jack's hedonistic lifestyle finally caught up with him and he flunked a test for the screen version of Sunny (1930), Miller convinced producer Jack Warner to instead hire Joe. Severely trimmed due to growing public apathy for the genre, the musical flopped and Joe Donahue's few subsequent screen roles were indifferent.