Don Borisenko

Acting

1939-05-22 · Longbranch, Ontario, Canada

Canadian performer who was seen in films and television from late 1950s to the 1970s. Called "the Canadian James Dean", after appearing in several features with success, Borisenko went to England where he had starring roles in two films by fellow Canadians: Sidney J. Furie's wartime melodrama "During One Night" (1960), and Mark Robson's account of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, "Nine Hours to Rama" (1963), in which he played Naryan Apte, the friend of Gandhi's murderer, Nathuram Vinayak Godse (played by Horst Buchholz). After he walked off the set of Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), dissatisfied with his role (which was then given to Donald Sutherland), Borisenko appeared on different television shows, back in Canada and in England. Moving in the 1970s to Los Angeles, he changed his name to Jonas Wolfe, appeared in several films, as "Black Gunn" (1972) and "The Laughing Policeman" (1973), and opened a music club, where he reportedly gave the rock group Van Halen their first paying gig. Borisenko finally retired from acting and dedicated his life to poetry, painting and sculpture.