Tom Donovan was born on August 1, 1922, in Boston, Massachusetts to John J. and Florence R. (Hackett) Donovan. He has one brother, John J., Jr., a commercial artist. As a child, Donovan attended Boston public schools and later Cornell University and Boston's Curry College, where he majored in drama. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1942 to 1946.
After leaving the Army he worked as a projectionist traveling out of Boston showing film classics throughout New England, and also spent a year as stage manager, lighting director, and actor with the Barter Theater of Abingdon, Virginia.
Moving to New York, Donovan worked as stage manager on Broadway in The Vigil (Royale, 1948, May 21). He then became involved with Goodbye, My Fancy (Morosco, 1948, Nov) also on Broadway and with the touring company, where he met his wife-to-be, actress Marie Phillips. They were married in 1951 and at this writing have two children, Kathleen and Kevin.
From 1950 to 1959 Donovan was with CBS-TV as stage manager, progressing rapidly to assistant director then director assigned to the Adventure series with Charles Collingwood. Donovan followed this with The Morning Show with Walter Cronkite. Thereafter, he became known as a director of dramas on such series as Danger!, Suspense, Studio One, Du Pont Show of the Month, Playhouse 90, and The U.S. Steel Hour.
Individual shows for which Donovan is especially noted include “The Time of Your Life” (10/9/58) with Jackie Gleason on Playhouse 90; “Hasty Heart” (12/18/58) on the Du Pont Show of the Month; “The Three Musketeers” (12/4-5/60) and “Vanity Fair” (1/12-13/61) on Family Classics; The Roots of Freedom series (1963-64), a segment of which was filmed in Greece with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne; and “The Old Lady Shows Her Medals,” the final U.S. Steel Hour show (6/12/63), also with Lunt and Fontanne.
From 1964 through 1965 Donovan directed the soap opera Another World on NBC, to which he returned after time out in 1965 for a brief stint with Our Private World. He remained with Another World until launching production of Love Is A Many Splendored Thing in 1967.
In 1968 Donovan began freelancing and did so until 1970 when he took the reins of A World Apart, another daytime drama series, on ABC. One year later, Donovan moved back to CBS to direct Where the Heart Is until 1973. In late 1973 he became executive producer of the short-lived CBS Daytime 90.
Donovan has been nominated for two Emmy Awards, has been awarded one for his contributions to Playhouse 90, and has been given the George Foster Peabody Award for the Adventure series.
Various professional organizations Donovan has been associated with include the Directors Guild of America, as a member of the National Board and the Eastern Council; the defunct Radio and Television Directors Guild, as president; The Players, a fellowship of people in the fine arts world; and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
