Donald May

Donald Adam May was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Harry S. May and Leontine May. He attended elementary school in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Shaker Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1949, he graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor of arts degree.[1]

May joined the U. S. Navy in 1951. Following completion of Officer's Training School, he became an ensign and a gunnery officer on a destroyer. He was discharged in 1955.

Before he finished college, May acted in summer stock theater in Surrey, Maine, in 1948. After graduation, he acted on stage in Albany, New York, and Brattleboro, Vermont. He also acted in Signal Corps films.[1]

May's first credited role was in 1956-1957 as Cadet Charles C. Thompson as the host of the ABC military drama series The West Point Story.[2]

Donald May as Sam Colt, Jr. in Colt .45

In 1959–1960, May temporarily replaced Wayde Preston as the lead in four episodes of the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Colt .45. May portrayed "Sam Colt, Jr.," cousin to Preston's character, Christopher Colt.[3]

He subsequently appeared in several other ABC/WB series, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne (as a young man plotting revenge in the episode "The Long Rope"), 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Surfside 6, and The Roaring 20s, in which he was cast from 1960 to 1962 in forty-two episodes in the recurring role of fictitious newspaper reporter Pat Garrison.[3] One of his principal co-stars on The Roaring 20s was Dorothy Provine.

In 1962, May made a television pilot in which he played a physician, Paul Larson, in the episode "County General" that was screened as an episode of ABC's drama series, Bus Stop, starring Marilyn Maxwell. That same year, he was cast as Major Thompson in "Any Second Now" of the ABC war drama, Combat!. In 1964, he portrayed Thatcher in the three-part episode, "The Tenderfoot" of NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. He was cast in 1964 in two other films, as Captain Anderson in A Tiger Walks, and as Secret Service agent John O'Connor in Kisses for My President, with Polly Bergen as the first woman President of the United States, with Fred MacMurray as "First Husband." Two years later, May was cast as Edward White, Jr., with, again, Fred MacMurray in the lead, in the film about the Boy Scouts of America, Follow Me, Boys!. In 1965 May made another unsuccessful TV pilot Dream Wife as the husband of psychic Shirley Jones.[4]

May subsequently guest starred on CBS's Men into Space, Barnaby Jones, The Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas, and Falcon Crest. He appeared on ABC's Fantasy Island. May was featured in several soap operas, including his role from 1967 to 1977 of crime busting lawyer, Adam Drake in The Edge of Night. He played Grant Wheeler in 1981-1982 on the Another World spinoff Texas.[5] He also had recurring roles in One Life to Live and All My Children.

May's most recent screen role was in 1993 as Andrew Laraby in the episode "Come Rain or Come Schein" on the NBC legal drama, L.A. Law.

From his first marriage to Ellen Cameron, May has two sons, Christopher and Douglas May. Cameron appeared on screen only once—in an episode of ABC's Arrest and Trial. May is married to Carla Borelli, an actress who has also appeared in the television series Texas and Falcon Crest.

• Donald May at IMDb
• Donald May at The New York Times
• Clips from Texas episodes