Dullea, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of two bookstore owners, and he was raised in New York's Greenwich Village section. He graduated from George School in Pennsylvania and attended both Rutgers and San Francisco State before deciding to pursue summer stock and regional theatre. Attending the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his New York City acting debut n a production of "Sticks and Bones" in 1956. His first big break came with the pilot program of the Route 66 (1960) series, and he proceeded to find other TV roles in Naked City and various dramatic programs including -
"Bonanza" Elegy for a Hangman (1963)
Bob Jolly is an angry young man who, with help from Adam, confront the "hanging judge" who sentenced his father to death in a high-stakes miscarriage of justice.
Tall, slim, remote and boyishly handsome, one of Keir Dullea's most arresting features are his pale blue eyes and, at one time, they were featured all over the screen in a number of watershed films of the 1960s. A major, up-and-coming film star from the "Camelot" years straight through the turbulent Vietnam era, he never quite reached his peak. The apex of his film career, however, came with his lead role in Stanley Kubrick’s epic science-fiction film -
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Dullea was married four times and has two step children. In 1983, Keir Dullea, with then wife Susie Fuller Dullea, founded the Theater Artists Workshop of Westport.
