Biography
Donald Cook (September 26, 1901 – October 1, 1961) was an American stage and film actor. Born in Portland, Oregon, he originally studied farming but later started business with a lumber company. He joined the Kansas Community Players and through this received an offer of stage work. He started screen work in "shorts" before going on to films. Cook was known for his portrayal of Mike Powers in the film The Public Enemy. He also was one of the first film actors to portray Ellery Queen, in The Sp...
Known For
Complete Filmography

The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas
1996
as Hunchback of Notre Dame
The made for television movie Munster's Scary Little Christmas, created three decades after the demise of the original series, concerns son Eddie miss...

Our Very Own
1950
as Fred Macaulay
During a heated argument with her sister Joan, Gail discovers the shocking news that she is adopted. With the reluctant support of her adoptive parent...

Patrick the Great
1945
as Pat Donahue Sr.
A famous stage actor hopes to land the lead role in a big new Broadway musical, but he's unaware his teenage son has already been given the part.
Blonde Ransom
1945
as Duke Randall
Vicki Morrison is the niece of the irascible old scoundrel Uncle William Morrison. When Vicki's boyfriend and owner of a Broadway nightclub Duke Randa...

Here Come the Co-Eds
1945
as Dean Larry Benson
Molly, her brother, Slats, and his pal, Oliver, are taxi dancers at the Miramar Ballroom. As a publicity stunt, Slats plants an article about Molly cl...

Bowery to Broadway
1944
as Dennis Dugan
Two Bowery vaudevillians find success in producing shows on Broadway, but when one of them suddenly departs to work for a beautiful woman, a feud erup...

Murder in the Blue Room
1944
as Steve
A young woman, a trio of singers, and a mystery writer are among the guests at a house long-considered to be haunted.
Freedom Comes High
1943
A young wife learns that freedom must sometimes be paid for in lives, when her husband's ship is struck during battle.

Circus Girl
1937
as Charles Jerome
A jealous trapeze star decides he must eliminate his romantic rival.

Two Wise Maids
1937
as Bruce Arnold
The two leading ladies are cast as Prudence and Agatha, a pair of old-fashioned schoolteachers in an old-fashioned small town. Disdaining the wimpy th...
Beware Of Ladies
1936
as George Martin
An unhappily married newspaper reporter discovers she's being used as a pawn in a scheme to discredit the political candidate she's been assigned to w...

Can This Be Dixie?
1936
as Longstreet Butler
A young girl and her uncle who run a traveling medicine show lend their efforts to salvage an old plantation.
Ellis Island
1936
as Gary Curtis
It opens in 1926 when three bank robbers, Theodore Kedrich, Jan Imarski, and Petra Lonelli, stage a daring daylight bank robbery and get away with a m...

Show Boat
1936
as Steve Baker
Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.

The Girl from Mandalay
1936
as Kenneth Grainger
John Foster and Kenneth Grainger are a couple of Englishmen stationed at a teak wood post. When Foster's fiancée, Mary Trevor, writes him that their e...

Ring Around the Moon
1936
as Ross Graham
Despite being in love with coworker Kay Duncan, high-flying newspaperman Ross Graham winds up engaged to socialite Gloria Endicott, a woman he doesn't...

The Leavenworth Case
1936
as Dr. Truman Harwell
Director Lewis D. Collins' 1936 whodunit is about the investigation into the death of an elderly tycoon, who is murdered shortly after announcing he p...

The Calling of Dan Matthews
1935
as Frank Blair
Dan Matthews (Richard Arlen), a young parson, is in love with Hope Strong (Charlotte Wynters), the daughter of James B. Strong ('FRederick Burton'), a...

Confidential
1935
as FBI Agent Dave Elliott
A Treasury agent gains the trust of a mob gunman while working under cover to smash a crime syndicate.

The Spanish Cape Mystery
1935
as Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen's vacation is interrupted when murder strikes next door to his oceanside cabin.

Here Comes the Band
1935
as Don Trevor
In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfrie...

Murder in the Fleet
1935
as Lieutenant Commander David Tucker
A traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of te...

Motive for Revenge
1935
as Barry Webster
Bank teller Barry Webster is driven to stealing bank funds by his mother-in-law who continually nags him about forcing her daughter Muriel to live in ...

Ladies Love Danger
1935
A mystery-comedy with multiple backgrounds set in a back-stage and penthouse backgrounds finds actress Rita Witherspoon mistakenly entering the apartm...

The Casino Murder Case
1935
as Lynn
When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the ...

Gigolette
1935
as Gregg Emerson
Kay Parrish, a society girl, finds she is penniless when her father dies. However she persuades Terry Gallagher to give her a hostess job at his New Y...

The Night Is Young
1935
as Toni Berngruber
Young Austrian Archduke Paul "Gustl" Gustave is in an arranged engagement but his uncle, the emperor, decides to let Gustl carry on a fling with balle...
Behind the Evidence
1935
as Ward Cameron
Norman Foster plays a millionaire who takes a job as a reporter after he's wiped out in the Stock Market. Foster's managing editor Samuel S. Hinds con...

Fugitive Lady
1934
as Jack Howard
In this thriller, a young woman marries a dashing young man who, unbeknownst to her, is a jewel thief.

Jealousy
1934
as Mark Lambert
Larry O'Roark is a boxer who's insanely posssesive and jealous of his fiancee, Jo. the sight of her and her employer, Mr. Lambert, at ringside during ...

Most Precious Thing in Life
1934
as Bob Kelsey
An unwed mother watches as her illegitimate son is raised by others. Director Lambert Hillyer's 1934 drama stars Jean Arthur, Richard Cromwell, Donald...

Viva Villa!
1934
as Don Felipe de Castillo
In this fictionalized biography, young Pancho Villa takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father's death.

Whirlpool
1934
as Bob Andrews
An ex-convict tries to connect with the daughter who doesn't even know he exists.

The 9th Guest
1934
as Jim Daley
Eight people are invited by an unsigned telegram to a penthouse apartment, where they find themselves locked in and greeted by their unknown host's v...

Long Lost Father
1934
as Bill Strong
A long-absent father is reunited with his daughter, who still holds a grudge that he had deserted his family years earlier.

The World Changes
1933
as Richard Nordholm
Generational saga tracing the events in the lives of the midwest pioneering Nordholm family, as seen through the eyes of businessman Orin Nordholm Jr....

Fog
1933
as Wentworth Brown
The murders are committed in swift succession on board a liner crossing the Atlantic in a dense fog, and many of the passengers come under suspicion b...

Fury of the Jungle
1933
as 'Lucky' Allen
Joan Leesom is stranded in a remote South American jungle village. She is pursued by the rapacious Taggart Taggart, however, has been involved with th...

Brief Moment
1933
as Franklin Deane
A high living society playboy marries a nightclub singer, and she soon realizes that, though they're genuinely in love, the husband's endless partying...

Baby Face
1933
as Ned Stevens
A young woman uses her body and her sexuality to help her climb the social ladder, but soon begins to wonder if her new status will ever bring her hap...

The Woman I Stole
1933
as Corew
A man (Jack Holt) wins his best friend's wife (Fay Wray) and seems to be plotting to ruin the man's oil business.

Jennie Gerhardt
1933
as Lester Kane
This turn-of-the-century tragedy chronicles the sorrowful travails of a woman who endures a series of devastating losses.

The Kiss Before the Mirror
1933
as Maria's Lover
When a famous doctor kills his adulterous wife, he is defended by his best friend, an attorney who suspects that his own wife is having an affair.

The Circus Queen Murder
1933
as The Great Sebastian
Suave, lip-reading DA Thatcher Colt plans to get away from the big city for a while. So he and his secretary, Miss Kelly hop on a train for an Upstate...

Private Jones
1933
as Lt. John Gregg
After America enters World War I, young William "Bill" Jones tries to avoid military service by telling the draft board that he is the sole supporter ...

Frisco Jenny
1933
as Dan Reynolds
Jenny is carrying the child of a young man who dies in the San Francisco earthquake (1906). After giving birth, she decides to place her child in the ...

The Penguin Pool Murder
1932
as Philip Seymour
New York schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers assists a detective when a body of unscrupulous stockbroker Gerald Parker suddenly appears in the penguin tank ...

The Conquerors
1932
as Warren Lennox
A newlywed couple journeys west to make their fortune, and begins a banking empire.

The Trial of Vivienne Ware
1932
as John Sutherland
Vivienne Ware is defended by her ex-beau when she's accused of killing her faithless fiance.

The Heart of New York
1932
as Milton
A poor New York plumber's wife and children hope to move "uptown" from their lower East Side neighborhood after he sells his new invention.

The Man Who Played God
1932
as Harold Van Adam
While giving a private performance for a visiting monarch, concert pianist Montgomery Royle is deafened when a bomb is detonated in an attempt to assa...

Taxi!
1931
as Actor in Movie Clip (uncredited)
Amidst a backdrop of growing violence and intimidation, independent cab drivers struggling against a consolidated juggernaut rally around hot-tempered...

Safe in Hell
1931
as Carl Bergen
To avoid the rigors of the law, Gilda flees New Orleans and hides on a Caribbean island where the worst criminals can ask for asylum. Besieged by the ...

The Mad Genius
1931
as Fedor Ivanoff
A crippled puppeteer rescues an abused young boy and turns the boy into a great ballet dancer. Complications ensue when, as a young man, the dancer fa...

Side Show
1931
as Joe Palmer
A circus side show performer tries to discourage her younger sister from following in her footsteps.

Party Husband
1931
as Horace Purcell
Party Husband finds ex-Ziegfield Girl Dorothy playing the better half of a thoroughly “modern marriage” whose openness threatens to bring about its pr...

The Public Enemy
1931
as Mike Powers
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blo...

How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 11: 'Practice Shots'
1931
Golf expert Bobby Jones arrives on the golf course to join actors James Cagney, Anthony Bushell, Donald Cook, Evalyn Knapp, and Louise Fazenda in shoo...

Unfaithful
1931
as Terry Houston
In this society drama set in contemporary England, a noblewoman pretends to be an adulteress in order to protect her sister-in-law, who actually is.

Roseland
1930
as Jack
A pretty dance hall girl is looking for the right guy.