Donald Haines - Our Gang

Our Gang

Haines's tenure began during the early talkies up through the "Miss Crabtree episodes," when he would leave for feature films at Paramount only to return a few months later. He was 11 years old when he joined the gang in 1930. His association with the Our Gang series lasted through 1933.

Haines's first short was Shivering Shakespeare, which featured the youngster giggling his way through his lines. In the next short, The First Seven Years, he played a main character opposite Jackie Cooper. After that, he played a recurring character with occasional lines of dialogue until 1931. At that time he was offered a contract with Paramount that began with a role in a feature called Skippy. Jackie Cooper also was offered a role on that feature along with a contract. Both Jackie and Donald are missing from the final scenes of the second-to-last short made in the 1930-31 season, Bargain Day, owing to their beginning work at Paramount.

Cooper would remain at Paramount. Haines, on the other hand, would quickly leave Paramount to return to Hal Roach Studios just in time for the 1931-32 season. At that point, because children age and grow up, several major characters left the series. This left a depleted Our Gang of only three regulars and a few recurring characters. Haines would resume his role as a recurring character with occasional dialogue for the next two seasons. Haines left the Our Gang series at the age of 15 after appearing in the 1933 short Fish Hooky. Unlike Jackie Cooper, Haines was not as popular as some of the other cast members. It was said on the documentary Our Gang: Inside the Clubhouse that Haines, Sherwood Bailey, and Kendall McComas have all vanished. Haines was one of the early Our Gang cast members to die at an early age.