Walter Donovan

CHARACTER
Walter Donovan
Gender	Male
Birth	c. late 1870s-early 1880s
Death	1938 Temple of the Sun, Canyon of the Crescent Moon, Republic of Hatay
Nationality	American
Profession(s)	Industrialist Collector of Antiquities Nazi agent
Allegiance(s)	Independent Donovan family Nazis Panama Hat (suspected employee)

"He chose...poorly."

―The Grail Knight, upon Donovan's demise

Walter Donovan was a wealthy American industrialist and collector of antiquities who allied himself with the Nazis in order to obtain the Holy Grail, which he sought for its fabled gift of immortality.

Around 1938, Donovan hired Professor Henry Walton Jones, Senior in order to track down the missing part of his Grail tablet, a marker to the Grail's resting place, but when Jones learned that his Austrian assistant, Elsa Schneider, was in fact an enemy agent, the Nazis took him prisoner. Donovan subsequently hired Jones' son, Indiana, to continue his father's work. However, Jones eventually managed to free his father from Castle Brunwald and escape from Donovan's clutches.

After the Joneses and their friends reached the Temple of the Sun in the Republic of Hatay behind Donovan and the Nazis, the industrialist shot the elder Jones to force his son into braving the traps protecting the relic. Donovan and Schneider followed him to the Holy Grail but found that there was a lethal final test: to recognize the true artifact hidden among the many fakes.

Donovan deferred to Schneider's expertise, but she betrayed him with a False Grail that rapidly aged the industrialist to the extent that all that remained of Walter Donovan was his Nazi pin, a symbol of his misplaced loyalties.

Biography

Early life

"Well, like yourself, Dr. Jones, I have a passion for antiquities."

―Donovan and his passions.

Walter Donovan was estimated by Indiana Jones to have been born around the late 1870s and the early 1880s. An industrialist, Donovan had spent his life indulging a passion for antiquities and became known in his later years for making several generous contributions to the Old World and National Museums, making him known in the archeology world despite not being a historian.

He had attended a couple of social events associated with the latter museum and its curator Marcus Brody had gotten to like him. At some point, Walter got married and he and his wife lived in a fancy apartment, number 225, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. He also owned up a private apartment in Venice and met the Sultan of the Republic of Hatay more than once during the noble's royal travels.

An American multimillionaire, Donovan employed several engineers in his businesses across the globe, including in Europe. One day, his copper mine engineers discovered a stone tablet north of Ankara, Turkey which held clues to the location of the Holy Grail. Donovan kept the tablet at this home along with a manuscript which contained a Franciscan friar's account of the story of three knights who had found the Grail.

Note: The following section is ambiguously canon.
It contains information that originates in a source that has not been deemed definitively canon.

Around 1936, Donovan attended the National Museum's annual gala during which he cornered Marion Ravenwood, then the institution's public relations agent, and unwittingly bored her to tears over his theories about the Lance of Longinus. The woman excused herself at the nearest opportunity and privately reflected on her late father Abner's advice to "never trust a guy who looks at an artifact and sees the cash value instead of the history. You never know what kind of company they keep".

Ambiguously canon information ends here.

Search for the Grail

"But I want the Grail itself. The cup that gives everlasting life. Hitler can have the world, but he can't take it with him. I'm going to be drinking my own health when he's gone the way of the dodo."

―Walter Donovan

By the late 1930s, Walter Donovan had fallen in with the Nazis as part of his plan to achieve the Grail's reputed gift of eternal life to whomever drank from it, and was assisted by Adolf Hitler's troops in uncovering the relic. Towards the end of 1937, Donovan hired Scottish professor and Grail lore scholar Henry Walton Jones, Senior to lead his research team to track down the resting place of the Grail, providing him a luxurious suite at the Plaza Hotel and letting Jones do a rubbing of his stone tablet's partial inscription. Anxious to find the second marker, Donovan asked Jones if he was willing to lead his research team. As such, Jones was paired with Doctor Elsa Schneider to find the location of a grail knight's tomb in Venice. On May 25, 1938, Jones gave an interview to Bob Ellis of The Byzantine Crusader where he credited Donovan for having acquired the Ankara mountain north regions marker essential for the expedition to find the Holy Grail. However, when Jones realized that Schneider was affiliated with the Nazis, he was made to conveniently 'disappear', spirited away and imprisoned at Castle Brunwald on the Austro-German border but not before he managed to send his Grail Diary, his lifelong research of the relic, to his archaeologist son Henry Walton Jones, Junior, better known as Indiana Jones.

Donovan kept an apartment in New York.

Donovan used the removal of the professor from his expedition to lure Henry's Indiana Jones into helping him piece together vital clues leading to the location of the Grail. As such, he had Indy brought to a cocktail party that he and his wife were hosting at his New York City apartment later that year. In a private room away from the guests, Donovan spoke with Jones about the tablet, which was one of the markers needed to discover the cup used by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper. After learning from Donovan that his father had gone missing when he suggested approaching him, Jones accepted the offer upon finding his father's home wrecked. Indy phoned Donovan the next day, accepting his offer to take over the expedition as long as he could book National Museum curator Marcus Brody, the Jones family's friend who convinced him to take the offer, leading Donovan to agree for "owing" him his gratefulness. After taking them to the airport and suggesting Indy to not trust anybody, Jones and Brody journeyed to Italy at Donovan's expense to meet with Schneider in Venice, unaware of her Nazi ties. There, they discovered Sir Richard's tomb and the rest of the inscription of Donovan's tablet written on the knight's shield.

"Didn't I warn you not to trust anybody, Dr. Jones?"

―Donovan reveals his alliagence with the Nazis.

Eventually, thanks to the help of Kazim, leader of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secret society dedicated to protecting the Grail by any means, Indy learned of his father's captivity. Indy and Elsa thus went to rescue the elder Jones from Castle Brunwald. Once there, however, Elsa betrayed them after acquiring the Grail Diary, handing it to Colonel Ernst Vogel. With the two Jones subdued, they were brought to a room where Donovan revealed himself as a Nazi ally. Learning of Donovan's nature, Indy privately speculated that Donovan may have been the same anonymous collector who had offered to buy the Cross of Coronado from Panama Hat, in a bad state financially following the Great Depression, in exchange for the archaeologist's death earlier that year off the Portuguese coast before plans possibly changed due to his survival and the Grail diary's disappearance. Donovan later made sure the Joneses were restrained at the castle's common room due to Indy's "handiwork" of three SS officers upstairs. When reports that Brody, who had been sent on ahead to Iskenderun with map pages ripped from the diary, had been apprehended by Nazi agents, Donovan left the Joneses in Vogel's hands while Schneider was called back to Berlin to attend a bookburning rally presided over by Hitler and took with her what Donovan thought was a now useless diary. However, during that same rally, the Joneses, having escaped from Brunwald, recovered the journal as it held vital details on how to navigate the devices protecting the Grail.

Donovan and the Nazis meet the Sultan of Hatay.

With the missing diary pages that supplied a map to the location of the Grail, Donovan and the Nazis headed to Hatay to negotiate permission from the country's Sultan to cross his land and retrieve the relic. Offering him treasures 'donated' by the finest families in Germany, Donovan found that what actually held the Sultan's interest was his Rolls-Royce Phantom II. Willing to give up his prized car if that meant finding the Holy Grail, Donovan readily handed the keys to the Sultan who supplied a military escort, including a Mark VII Tank, in exchange.

Donovan during the desert chase.

Shortly afterwards, after a brief stop at an oasis, a surprise attack from the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword was launched, and though some of Donovan's men were killed, the Brotherhood was mostly wiped out, including Kazim. A chase followed, through which Indiana Jones sought to save Brody who was being held inside the tank. While Vogel and many of his soldiers stayed behind to deal with the archaeologist, Donovan, with Schneider and some soldiers at his side, went on ahead to the Temple of the Sun.

At the Grail temple, Donovan proceeded to send soldiers into the temple's lethal traps one by one to gain access to the relic but none were able to bypass the first challenge. After the death of another soldier, Donovan demanded more 'volunteers' but with the subsequent arrival and capture of Jones and his allies, Donovan directed Indy to go through the challenges and obtain the Grail, while at the same time assuring the Joneses that he planned to drink from the Grail for his own health and let Hitler "go the way of the dodo". Jones initially refused but Donovan shot Henry in retaliation, forcing Jones to rely on the Grail's reputed powers to save his father. After Jones neutralized the traps and reached the inner sanctum where the last of the Grail knights kept watch over the sacred chalice–and several more false pretenders–Donovan and Schneider followed in safety.

Death

"I'm not a historian. I have no idea what it looks like. Which one is it?"

―Donovan on deciding which cup is the true Grail.

Donovan agrees with following doctor's orders.

The knight explained to his visitors that only by drinking from the true Holy Grail would grant that person eternal life, while a false one would take it away. Faced with this dilemma, Donovan relied on Schneider choosing for him. She gave Donovan a bejeweled, golden chalice that Donovan convinced himself was indeed a cup befitting the King of Kings.

"It's more beautiful than I'd ever imagined. This certainly is the cup of the King of Kings."

―Donovan holding the presumed Grail.

Toasting to his own longevity, Donovan drank from the Grail. He sighed with satisfaction at his apparent accomplishment, but it was not to be. After a long pause, Donovan gasped in pain, dropping the golden chalice to the ground while suffering a painful convulsion. To his horror, Donovan found his hair rapidly growing out from his skull and his skin quickly wrinkling. He grabbed Schneider, his desperate questioning of what was happening turning into furious, undead roars of anger upon realizing Schneider had tricked him, using what remained from his strength to choke her.

"What is happening to me? (...) Tell me, what is happening?!"

―Donovan as he realized to have drunk fom the wrong cup.

Walter Donovan ages rapidly to dust.

Donovan would go on to have his silver hair sprout, grow long, gray and brittle, his skin turn leathery and brown, his eyeballs shrivel into nothing while shrinking back into his skull, his face grow crusty and his mouth wither away, leaving his rotten gums and teeth on full display in a matter of seconds, but Indiana Jones pushed what was left of the doomed Donovan away to save Schneider. With his bony arms still flailing in desperation, the skeletal Donovan fell against a wall where he shattered into dust. With a Nazi pin left lying amongst all that remained of him, the knight announced that Walter Donovan had chosen poorly.

Legacy

Following Donovan's death, Jones and Schneider correctly deduced which cup was the Holy Grail: a wooden one, that of a carpenter. Jones briefly paused due to witnessing Donovan's fate, but his love for his father made him take the risk. While Jones became immortal upon drinking it, the knight ironically revealed that the Grail's powers didn't last beyond the Great Seal. Jones proceeded to save his father and Schneider perished upon triggering the temple's destruction while trying to escape with the Cup of Christ, claiming what little remained of Donovan in the process.

Indiana later wrote down in his journal that anyone would have thought that Donovan's obsession with the Holy Grail would have at least much allowed him to deduce that the fake grail that took his life couldn't be that of Jesus Christ given his job as a carpenter, which Donovan clearly didn't. Henry later included a mention to Donovan in the article he wrote about the quest for the Grail in the Princeton Review. Anyway, his overall experience with Donovan led Jones to learn that seeming well-meaning collectors with deep pockets may have ulterior motives that could conflict with his own and end up with him tied up at a castle.

Note: The following section is cut content.
It contains information cut from the final release of an Indiana Jones medium, or otherwise unpublished. Everything said in this section and not elsewhere did not happen in the "proper" Indiana Jones continuity.

By January 1939, partly due to Donovan's failure in retrieving the Holy Grail despite his auspices for the expedition to the Nazis, German archaeologist Magnus Völler was appointed by Heinrich Himmler as director of the Verteidigung Germanisches Altertum department within the Schutzstaffel, setting his sights on the Staff of Kings to give Germany a biblical religious artifact that could cement the Third Reich's power.

Cut content information ends here.

When Völler and his German Desert Commandos encountered him in the Sudan Temple, Jones flew out from Sudan aboard a plane to escape from them in a flight during which he was able to spot none other than the doomed Donovan's final resting place.

Walter Donovan's death later became known and it was while researching the 1936 disappearance of his own father in connection with Indiana Jones that the son of the late French mercenary archaeologist René Emile Belloq learned of Jones' involvement in the American businessman's mysterious demise and pieced together accounts made by Henry Jones, Sr.

In 1951, Henry Jones, Sr.'s life came to an end, thirteen years after Donovan's attempt on his life. However, the Grail's life-saving act at the Temple of the Sun prevailed until that point and allowed Indy's father to pass away through a natural death instead of the homicide act Donovan nearly committed.

Years after the industrialist's death, a cocktail served at Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar called Donovan's Dilemma included a note from the pilot playfully offering a choice between the drink or the Grail.

Personality and traits

"I misjudged you, Walter. I knew you would sell your mother for an Etruscan vase, but I didn't know you would sell your country and your soul to the slime of humanity."

―Henry Jones

Walter Donovan was a ruthless, arrogant and greedy man though he was able to hide it under the mask of a warm, genial and understanding person who was concerned about other people, even though Indiana Jones thought he lacked judgement at first for looking at a supposedly legendary artifact. Upon finding out his true colors, both Indy and his father concluded Donovan was a lunatic. He even smiled at them as if they were his friends and business partners after the reveal as if he were a madman. Not what he seemed to be, He was just a devious collector who pretended to be Indy's friend just to use his skills and even injure Indy's father to obtain what he wanted. Though distinguished, Donovan was duplicitous. He was also somewhat hypocritical, as he told Indiana not to trust anybody but then relied on his equally ruthless colleague Elsa Schneider to pick out and deliver the correct Grail for him, a trait which ultimately cost him his life. He realized his mistake too late, so his fury-driven remains did their best to try to get back at Schneider, whom he had ironically thought of as his friend despite his willingness to abandon her to save his own neck and Schneider considering him the worst man she had come across with despite often dealing with arrogant and overbearing ones who treated her as a jewelry piece, even talking to her in a flat and condescending tone.

An example of his ruthlessness was through desire for objects of great historical significance, like the Holy Grail, for his own purposes: Henry Jones Sr. regarded Donovan as a man willing to sell his own mother for an Etruscan vase. In his desire for eternal life, he had no regard for others; when two soldiers were beheaded by a trap trying to reach the Grail, Donovan merely ordered another forward and later shot Indy's father so the former would be forced to retrieve the Grail. His greed was so immense that he almost paid no attention to the immortal knight at the Grail chamber. He was too arrogant to even admit anyone could ever outwit him. His way of being led Jones to conclude Donovan fitted in very well with the Nazis, imagining him easily in a chat with Adolf Hitler about relics and antiquities, with Donovan even seeing him and his father as artifacts to check on while captive under his thumb. Having control of the situation was something Donovan enjoyed, smiling with certainty when Jones was forced to accept to look the Holy Grail for him unless he wanted his father to die.

Despite being around his late fifties by 1938, Donovan had the broad shoulders and trim physique of a young man. There was nothing on Donovan's appearance that suggested he was middle-aged despite his graying hair, at least in the way he spoke and moved. He had a squared jaw, thinning blonde hair, was tall, muscular and had such a firm grip when shaking hands with Jones. He also counted with a good taste in the Art Deco style, given how his New York City apartment was decorated in that style, behaving in a regal and aristocratic way whenever he could and treating himself as a twentieth-century patrician if the ego-boosting paintings, which Jones found pretentious for not being displayed to museums but to himself, of his palace-like Venice apartment were of any indication.

Behind the scenes

"At the same time, he took that wonderful line, He chose poorly, in such a dry way, that it was really funny. When I saw it, it got an absolute belly laugh."

―Julian Glover

Walter Donovan was portrayed by Julian Glover in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Glover originally auditioned, unsuccessfully, for the role of Colonel Ernst Vogel in a screen test, getting terribly jealous when Michael Byrne got the role instead, but was called back by producer Robert Watts to be interviewed for Donovan's part. A British actor, Glover adopted an American accent to play Donovan, but he was ultimately dissatisfied with the final result. Glover felt that he needed to perfectly deliver a realistic American dialect to ensure that several American actors didn't get angry at him. Donovan, however, ended up being the favorite villain of Glover's career, finding Donovan a "well developed and funny" character. He was voiced by Phil Proctor in the Read-Along Adventure adaptation.

In the third revision of Jeffrey Boam's original script, Donovan was named Walter Chandler with a company of his own named the Chandler Foundation instead. While Chandler was one of the main villains, he was not intended to be the primary antagonist with the character falling to his death with the tank in Hatay (a fate which would later go to Vogel). Tom Stoppard changed the character's surname to Donovan in his revisions as well as the manner of his demise.

The effect of Donovan's rapid aging and explosion into ash was dubbed "Donovan's Destruction" by the Industrial Light & Magic staff and marked a technological breakthrough in effects work as the first shot completely computer composited and then scanned to film. ILM used life-size articulated puppets of Donovan's head in different phases of decomposition. Images were scanned into a computer where they were processed to form a seamless transformation.

As previously mentioned, Glover liked to play Donovan in Last Crusade and enjoyed his experience acting in the film overall. However, while Glover and the late Sir Sean Connery maintained a friendly relationship after the film's release, he has admitted that he never talked with Harrison Ford again as of 2018.

At the end of the movie, in Donovan's remains, is shown the Golden Party Badge. These badges were numbered 1, Hitler's number, to 100,000. Although only 22,282 badges were given, these were intended to reward the first 100,000 members who joined the NSDAP beginning in 1933. This suggests that Donavan was not just a Nazi sympathizer but a member of the party. Ryder Windham's 2008 junior novelization says (perhaps metaphorically) that, despite his claims, Donovan had been always a member of the party when his Nazi pin is the only thing that remains of him. In turn, The World of Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones Activity Annual and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Annual 2009 state that Donovan was a Nazi spy just like Schneider, while Rob MacGregor's unpublished novelization for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings calls Donovan an American expatriate who merely auspiced the Grail effort.

In an interview for the tenth issue of The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine, Glover described Donovan as "a Harvard or Yale man". Whether this means Donovan studied in one of those if not both places canonically has yet to be confirmed by Lucasfilm Ltd.

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, Donovan dies off-screen, decapitated when he tries to follow Jones (who doesn't block the mechanism of the rotating blades as in the film). However, Indy himself will suffer Donovan's original fate if he drinks from the wrong Grail. Donovan is the final boss in the game Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures. Rather than perish upon drinking from the False Grail chosen by Elsa (who is absent from this scene), he "grabs a cup and drinks. But that was not the Grail and in fright he begins to transform into a skeleton" who can dislodge his body parts and must be put out of commission by Jones. Donovan also selects the False Grail for himself in the film's Read-Along Adventure adaptation, where he sinks to the floor as an ancient skeleton blackened with age.

In LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Donovan independently chooses the wrong Grail; he is shown eagerly running to that grail and just immediately drinks from it. Indy never kicks him into a wall, either: Donovan simply ages to death in a somewhat comical manner. Three different versions of Donovan are unlockable in the game: his tuxedo, normal suit and, in the portable versions, his appearance after aging. In the sequel, which had a much looser depiction of the first three films, Donovan becomes super-powered by a whirlwind, which can only be destroyed through use of a bazooka and silver objects. After being defeated by Indy and Sallah, Donovan loses control of his tornado and falls to an unknown fate into the abyss, destroying the Grail Temple in the process. Ironically, perhaps in an oversight, Donovan's pieces to be built in free mode appear behind Indy and Sallah after they escape.

Walter Donovan has the distinction of being the only main antagonist of an Indiana Jones film that has never been released as an action figure in official merchandise. No Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade toy line was made in 1989 due to Kenner's closure, but when Hasbro released a Last Crusade toy line in 2008, Donovan was again absent yet Elsa Schneider and Ernst Vogel had figures on the line. There were plans by Hasbro for an action figure of Donovan for the following year, but the toy line was cancelled before one could be made. Similarly, Donovan wasn't released in any actual LEGO Indiana Jones set by LEGO, despite being featured in the two LEGO video games.

Appearances

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (1989)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (2008)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade storybook
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Read-Along Adventure
• Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
• Indiana Jones: Traps and Snares (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones: The Search For Buried Treasure
• Disney Magic Kingdoms (Mentioned only) (Ambiguously canonical appearance)
• Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings novel (Cancelled) (Indirect mention)
• Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar (Mentioned only)
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Non-canonical appearance)
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• "Lost in the Mists of Time: The Muddled Myths of the Holy Grail" – The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine 8
• Grail Diary
• The Byzantine Crusader
• From Star Wars To Indiana Jones - The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives
•  The Last Crusade: Choose wisely on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
•  Indy's Read-Along Adventures on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
•  Indiana Jones' Marshall College entry on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
• "No Time for Love?" - Indiana Jones: The Official Magazine 5
• The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
• Indiana Jones action figures (Pack: Colonel Vogel)
• The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Annual 2009
• Sideshow Collectibles (Pack: Henry Jones, Sr. 1:6 Scale Figure)
• Star Wars Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle
• The Diaries of Indiana Jones
• Grail Diary (prop replica)
•  Indiana Jones Grail Tablet Magnet on RegalRobot.com (backup link on Archive.org)
•  Grail Tablet 1:1 Wall Decor on RegalRobot.com (backup link on Archive.org)
• Indiana Jones Cryptic
•  Into The Unknown: Lucasfilm's Brushes with Horror on Lucasfilm.com (backup link on Archive.org)