Sir Donald Wolfit (born Donald Woolfitt; 20 April 1902 – 17 February 1968) was an English actor-manager, known for his touring productions of Shakespeare. He was especially renowned for his portrayal of King Lear.

Born to a conventional middle-class family in Nottinghamshire, Wolfit was stage-struck from an early age. His debut was at the Robin Hood Opera House at Averham to which he cycled from school to join the theatre rep company. After a brief spell as a teacher he joined the touring company of the actor-manager Charles Doran and later that of Fred Terry. He made his London début in 1924 and simplified the spelling of his surname from Woolfitt to Wolfit.

In 1929 Wolfit joined Lilian Baylis's company at the Old Vic but developed a strong antipathy to the leading man, John Gielgud, and left the company after a season. He joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre companies for the festivals of 1936 and 1937, in thirteen major roles, winning excellent reviews for his performance as Hamlet. He then set up his own touring company, taking the plays of Shakespeare and others round Britain and from time to time overseas. He continued to appear in the West End and made several films but his main concern was for his touring company. Its standards were criticised but several members moved on to greater fame, including Harold Pinter and Brian Rix.

Wolfit was born at New Balderton, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, on 20 April 1902, the second son and fourth of five children of William Pearce Woolfitt and his wife Emma, née Tomlinson. It was a conventional household; Woolfitt senior was an Anglican churchgoer, a Conservative supporter and a Freemason. From his early childhood Wolfit wanted to become an actor, despite his father's disapproval.

After education at Magnus Grammar School in Newark he was briefly a schoolmaster in Eastbourne before passing an audition for the actor-manager Charles Doran. Doran's touring company was a training ground for many British actors, including Ralph Richardson, Cecil Parker, Edith Sharpe, Norman Shelley, Abraham Sofaer and Francis L Sullivan. Wolfit's début role, at the Theatre Royal, York on 13 September 1920, was Biondello in Doran's production of The Taming of The Shrew. Between his engagement with Doran and his West End début in 1924 he toured with the companies of Alexander Marsh and later Fred Terry. For the rest of his life Wolfit acknowledged his debt to the latter for what he had learnt from him.

Wolfit made his London début on 26 November 1924 at the New Theatre, as Phirous in Matheson Lang's production of The Wandering Jew. At about this time he simplified the spelling of his surname from Woolfitt to Wolfit. He appeared in supporting roles in West End productions, and at St George's, Westminster, on 16 April 1928, he married an actress, Chris Frances Castor, with whom he had a daughter Margaret Wolfit, who was also an actress. The marriage lasted until 1933, when the couple divorced.

In 1929 Wolfit joined Lilian Baylis's company at the Old Vic and played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Cassius in Julius Caesar, Touchstone in As You Like It, Macduff in Macbeth and Claudius in Hamlet. The company's leading man was John Gielgud, to whom Wolfit took a strong and lasting dislike, envious of Gielgud's success and being what the biographer Sheridan Morley describes as "virulently anti-homosexual". Wolfit made himself unpopular with his fellow actors and his contract was not renewed after the first year.

After further West End appearances, Wolfit joined Sir Barry Jackson's company in 1931 for a six-month tour of Canada. He played Robert Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Young Marlowe in She Stoops to Conquer, Joe Varwell in Yellow Sands, Coade in Dear Brutus and Shakespeare in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. He overcame his hatred of Gielgud enough to accept the role of Thomas Mowbray in Richard of Bordeaux (1932) with a cast headed by Gielgud and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies; the piece ran for more than a year. Wolfit made a impression in 1933 in the title role of a one-night-only production of Hamlet at the Arts Theatre using the First Quarto text rather than the First Folio text usually given. The Daily Telegraph said,