Arthur "The Bulldog" Donovan, Jr. (born June 5, 1925) is a former American football defensive tackle who played for several National Football League teams, most notably the Baltimore Colts. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
Biography
Early life
He is the son of Arthur Donovan, a famed boxing referee, and the grandson of Professor Mike Donovan, the world middleweight boxing champion in the 1870s.
Art attended Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx. He spent four years in military service with the United States Marine Corps during WW II before playing college football at Boston College. He graduated in 1950.
He started playing professional football with the Baltimore Colts in 1950, but that edition of the franchise folded. He moved to the New York Yanks in 1951; they became the Dallas Texans in 1952 and finally the Baltimore Colts in 1953. He became one of the stars in an outstanding defense and was selected to five straight Pro Bowls for 1954 to 1958. The Colts won back to back championships in 1958 and 1959.
He was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
Post-playing career
He published an autobiography, Fatso, in 1987. He was noted as a jovial and humorous person during his playing career and capitalized on that with television and speaking appearances after retiring as a player. He owns and manages a country club near Baltimore. Donovan also appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, telling humorous stories about his old playing days and about other "old school" footballers he played with and against.
Donovan also made a guest appearance in the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete in the episode, "Space, Geeks, and Johnny Unitas." Art also quite infamously appeared as a bumbling guest commentator at WWF King of the Ring 1994, breaking kayfabe and making a mess of the night's storyline.
He was co-host of the popular 1990s program Braase, Donovan, Davis and Fans on WJZ-TV in Baltimore with fellow Colt teammate Ordell Braase. The trio talked more about Art Donovan's fabled stories than contemporary NFL football, but the show held high ratings in its time period.
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