Colby Donaldson

Colby Donaldson was a contestant in Survivor: The Australian Outback, Survivor: All-Stars and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains. He placed 2nd, 12th and 5th respectively.

Australia
Originally from Christoval, Texas, Colby Donaldson is a successful, self-employed custom auto designer and builder currently living in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in business marketing and began working as a sales representative at an HMO carrier until he decided to leave the security of a successful corporate job to pursue a passion and start his own company.

Donaldson describes himself as imaginative, dedicated and flexible. A competitive athlete, he enjoys water skiing and mountain biking before gathering with friends for a barbecue. When not customizing cars, Donaldson enjoys designing and building furniture. His favorite sport to watch is football, but he prefers to play sand volleyball.

His birth date is April 1, 1974.

Survivor: The Australian Outback
In the beginning, he quipped that the trip to find their camp 'fired him up', because it was a good way to see what his tribemates were made of. He took on an early leadership role of the tribe, making a plan with Keith that he would keep the tribe moving along the creek bed while Keith scouted ahead to see how much farther the camp was.

He was a physical asset to his tribe, and helped his tribe win the first Immunity Challenge. However, the second Immunity Challenge was not strength based and Ogakor lost. Colby voted with the other Ogakors in unison to unanimously vote off Kel Gleason.

Initially, he and Jerri began some chemistry between each other, being mutually attracted to one another, though there was suspicion that the latter had ulterior motives. After Maralyn's poor performance at the third Immunity Challenge, Colby voted with the rest of his tribe to eliminate her. After losing their third consecutive Immunity Challenge, Jerri boldly alienated Tina and Keith by stating that Colby, Amber, and Mitchell are her friends. This gesture made Tina to ask Colby his opinions on Jerri, slowly broaching the subject of voting with them. Colby did not want to vote for Keith, who was the main target next Tribal Council. He bonded with Keith and saw him as a valuable ally to have later on in the game.That night, Colby voted with Tina and Keith to force a tie in Ogakor. Since Mitchell had received a previous vote at the last Tribal Council, he was eliminated. After Ogakor's three-time Immunity losing streak, all five remaining Ogakors remained intact until the merge. He became one of ten castaways who comprised the merged Barramundi tribe.

Due to Ogakor's plan to make Kucha believe he had received past votes cast against him, the rival Kucha tribe cast their five votes for him at the merge. Colby got the back of his Ogakor comrades and all of them voted for Kucha member Jeff Varner. After a deadlocked tie, previous votes were taken into account. While Colby had no previous votes, Varner already had two (from Debb Eaton and Kimmi Kappenberg), this caused Varner's ouster. Donaldson would later become a forced to be reckoned with, winning eight of the final ten challenges, while his core alliance of Tina and Keith had voted the competition off, thus leaving the threesome as the final three castaways. Colby's winning streak not only spared him from elimination, but also made a critical decision of taking either Tina or Keith. He felt that Tina was more deserving, sending Keith to the Jury.

Colby's decision of bringing Tina was considered by fans as a big mistake, and which was widely believed to have cost him the competition, because four of the seven Jury members gave their votes to Tina, making her the second Sole Survivor.

Survivor: All-Stars
Colby was chosen to participate in Survivor: All Stars, where he was on the Mogo Mogo tribe and was the 7th person voted out. At the Survivor: All Stars televised second reunion show, Survivor: America's Tribal Council, Donaldson was voted by an online poll as the sexiest male castaway of all first 8 seasons.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains
Donaldson returned to play for a third time in the 20th installment/10th anniversary season Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains. Due to his "heroic" (yet deemed by some fans as a dumb move) move of taking Jury vote threat Tina over the despised Keith Famie, and his legendary challenge performances, he earned a place on the Heroes tribe.

Colby was then became an alliance outsider, only having ex-Palau players Tom Westman and Stephenie LaGrossa as his alliance. With this, together with the stress of the competition, he surprisingly performed weak in challenges, with James Clement (who visibly idolized him) even calling him, "Superman in a fatsuit." Despite being an outsider, he and the rest of the Heroes won the next three Immunity Challenges, securing that the Heroes and the Villains would enter the merge with five members each. But after a bold move done by Villain Parvati Shallow of giving two Hidden Immunity Idols to be used by Sandra Diaz-Twine and Jerri Manthey (Colby's Outback arch-nemesis), the Heroes were systematicaly eliminated, one by one. After fellow former Hero Candice Woodcock voted along with the former Villains to vote out Amanda Kimmel, he claimed that he and Rupert Boneham were the only remaining heroes. Colby was the last of the Heroes to be eliminated, being voted out on Day 37. In the final tribal council, Colby felt that Parvati was riding Russell's coattails and voted for Sandra to win.

Post-Survivor
After his stint on reality television, Donaldson turned to acting, appearing on such shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004), Reba (2002), Joey (2004-2005), and Bones (2006). He starred in several commercials as the spokesman for Schick razors, had a minor role as a secret service agent in Wes Craven's Red Eye (2005).

He was on The Rachael Ray Show as one of Rachael's "buddies" (2007-2010). He's also been on various celebrity/news shows, often in relation to his Survivor stints. See the Internet Movie Database for details.

Currently, Donaldson is the host of Top Shot, a History Channel TV competition where 16 sharp shooters compete in teams and then individually using historic and contemporary weapons, until only one survives. The first season aired in June 2010; casting for season 4 is in progress (April 2010). http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot

He owns a hot rod restoration business. He divides his time between California and the family ranch in Texas.

Donaldson is also known for his friendship with Survivor host Jeff Probst and their regular poker games.

Trivia

 * Colby Donaldson is the only player to vote for Sandra and to have his vote count.
 * Donaldson was the only male representative of Survivor: The Australian Outback to appear in Survivor: All-Stars.
 * Along with fellow castaway Amber Mariano, he is the only other Survivor: The Australian Outback contestant to appear in more than one finale episode of Survivor as both a finalist and a jury member.
 * Earned the title of "Sexiest Survivor Male" in America's Tribal Council.
 * Total number of votes against him: 16.