TROY DONAHUE The Rise & Fall of a HOLLYWOOD HEARTTHROB

HE HAD IT ALL, LOST IT AND GREW INTO A PROUD SURVIVOR

- LOUISE A. BARILE

In 1997, Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee reunited in New York City for a revival screening of their soapy 1959 romance A Summer Place. "I was mesmerized by my own image up there. I kind of said, 'Man, that's what they were talking about.' Because you forget," Troy said. "Being that young and beautiful, both of us - that's pretty heady stuff."

The popular movie made Troy a star, but his time on the A-list didn't last long. Changing movie tastes, Troy's unwillingness to play handsome-yet-vapid characters, and a secret drinking problem would derail his career before it really started. But that wasn't the end of Troy's story. In middle age, he turned his life around and achieved the internal peace that would allow him to look back on his early years with pride.

Merle Johnson Jr., who would be christened Troy Donahue by the same agent who named Rock Hudson, came from a privileged background in New York. "Central Park was his playground," says Michael Gregg Michaud, author of Inventing Troy Donahue: The Making of a Movie Star.

His idyllic childhood ended when Troy's father became ill with ALS and died in 1947. "He absolutely adored his father. His death was something that he never, ever recovered from," says Michaud. Troy confessed that he started sneaking liquor around this time. "I started drinking when I was studying for midterms in the seventh grade. It was a functional thing," said Troy.