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Irish Actors

Collection of Classic Irish Actors

Ray McAnally
Ray McAnally
Ray McAnally
Ray McAnally
Ray McAnally

Ray McAnally was born in Buncrana in Co Donegal in 1926.   He became a member of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1947.    He played  oppostine Constance Cummings in the London production of “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf” as George and garnered very favourable reviews for his searing performance.   He made many television performances over the next few years.   In 1986 he gave a tremendous performance as Altamirano the Cardinal in Roland Joffe’s “The Mission” opposite Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons.   He followed this two years later with another forceful performance with Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker in “My Left Foot”.   He won great acclaim for television’s “A Very British Coup”.   He died suddenly at the age of 63 jst as he was getting into his stride as a major figure in international cinema.

Article from “The Donegal Diaspora”:

Born on 30th March 1926 in Buncrana, Co. Donegal, Ray McAnally was educated at Saint Eunan’s college, Letterkenny. During his time there, he wrote, produced and staged a musical called ‘Madame Screwball’. Upon leaving, Ray entered the seminary but left again a short time after. In 1947 he joined the Abbey Theatre where he met and married actress Ronnie Masterson. Together they formed Old Quay Productions, putting on an array of classic plays throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

He made a triumphant London theatre debut in 1962 with “A Nice Bunch of Cheap Flowers” and was cast as George in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” opposite legendary British actress, Constance Cummings, at the Piccadilly Theatre. He routinely acted in the Abbey and at various Irish festivals, achieving award-winning notice on TV and films in the last decade of his life. His impressive performance as Cardinal Altamirano in the film “The Mission” (1986) earned him Evening Standard and BAFTA awards. His role in the BBC production of “A Perfect Spy”(1987) also earned him a BAFTA award.

In the last year of his life, McAnally portrayed the role of Daniel Day-Lewis’ father in the Academy Award-winning film “My Left Foot” (1989). McAnally died suddenly of a heart attack on June 15th of that year and received a posthumous BAFTA award for this, his last movie. McAnally had four children; Conor, Aonghus, Máire and Niamh.

Growing up in an atmosphere of theatre and television, it was quite natural that Ray’s children would follow him into the entertainment industry. Ray’s son, Conor is a professional television producer/director with 30 years experience in music and television programming. He has been Director, Producer, Writer or Executive Producer of more than 2000 show episodes in a wide range of genres . His shows have won 22 major awards including 5 British Academy Awards and 3 from the Royal Television Society

Ray’s son Aonghus is a well known TV presenter and personality in Ireland, working on various renowned RTÉ TV and radio productions including ‘Anything Goes” and “The Lyrics Board”. The brothers recollect that summer caravan holidays on Shrove beach in Co. Donegal were very special: ‘playing on the sand dunes was a thrill as an innocent 8 year old!’says Aonghus.

One summer Conor was featured on the John Hinde postcard of the harbour in Moville. Aonghus jokes that for years he has resented the fact that Conor never called him to be in the picture, despite the fact he was only around the corner. Due to hectic work schedules and geography, both brothers regret that they are not able to visit Donegal more often but when they do, Aonghus claims that they have a definite sense of feeling closer to their father:

‘Whenever I am there I feel his spirit around me. We are all formed by our memories of parents and Donegal was a pivotal part of who and what he was… If it’s your county or your people’s county then when you touch the soil under foot then you are home. Simple as that!’.

This article from “The Donegal Diaspora” can also be accessed online here.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Although Irish character actor Ray McAnally would become one of his country’s most revered stage actors, he will be forever remembered by audiences both here and abroad for a couple of films he made during the last years of his life. Born in the seaside town of Buncrana and the son of a bank manager, he was educated at St. Eunan’s College and entered a seminary at the age of 18. Lucky for us stage and filmgoers, the priesthood proved not to be his calling, and he departed after only a brief time. He joined the Abbey Theatre in 1947 where he met and married actress Ronnie Masterson. They would later form Old Quay Productions and present an assortment of classic plays in the 60s and 70s. He made a triumphant London theatre debut in 1962 with “A Nice Bunch of Cheap Flowers” and gave a towering performance as George in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” opposite legendary British actress, Constance Cummings, at the Piccadilly Theatre. He routinely acted in the Abbey and Irish festivals, but then, in the last decade of life, achieved award-winning notice on TV and films. His impressive performance as Cardinal Altamirano in the film The Mission (1986) earned him Evening Standard and BAFTA awards. His role in the BBC production of A Perfect Spy (1987) also earned him a BAFTA award. In the last year of his life, he was absolutely awe-inspiring as Daniel Day-Lewis’ father in the Academy Award-winning film _My Left Foot (1989)_, the story of cerebral palsy victim Christy Brown, who overcame his severe disability to become a flourishing artist and writer. McAnally died suddenly of a heart attack on June 15th of that year and received a posthumous BAFTA award for this last movie in 1990. A fitting end to a versatile, galvanizing talent.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Seamus Gubbins
Seamus Gubbins
Seamus Gubbins

Seamus Gubbins hails from Castleconnell in Co Limerick and was born in 1965.   .   He is perhaps best known for his role as Ray Mullen on television’s long-running “Emmerdale”.   He has many other British television appearances to his credit including “Doctors”, “Taggert” and “Waterloo Road”.   He was a merchant banker for four years before leaving the job and going to drama school in Glasgow.   Link for “Emmerdale” profile can be accessed here.

Hurd Hatfield
Hurd Hatfield

Hurd Hatfield was born in 1917 in New York City.   He came to fame with his role in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with Angela Lansbury.  His other roles include “El Cid”, “King of Kings” and “The Boston Strangler”.   He lived in Ireland and died there in 1998.

His obituary by Tom Vallance in “The Independent”:

THE ACTOR Hurd Hatfield will always be associated with the film role that made him a star, that of the aesthetic young man who remains youthful through the years while a portrait of himself in the attic displays the aberrations of his life, in MGM’s film version of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

He would later say, however, that the role was a curse as well as a blessing, for within five years he was appearing in B movies, and throughout the rest of his life he would be associated with that single role, despite a long and varied career in film, television and particularly theatre. “I have been haunted by The Picture of Dorian Gray,” he said. “New York, London, anywhere I’m making a personal appearance, people will talk about other things but they always get back to Dorian Gray.” Coincidentally, until recently Hatfield’s appearance remained remarkably youthful, and he became accustomed to being asked if he kept a painting of himself in his attic.

He was born William Rukard Hurd Hatfield in New York City in 1918. He won a scholarship to study acting at Michael Chekhov’s Dartington Hall company in Devon, England, and made his professional debut in the spring of 1939 playing the Baron in scenes from The Lower Depths at the company’s theatre. Returning to the United States with Chekhov’s company, he toured as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Caleb Plummer in Cricket on the Hearth, and Gloucester in King Lear, before making his Broadway debut as Kirilov in The Possessed (1939).

This adaptation of several Dostoevsky works into one sombre 15-scene play ran for only 14 performances, with both the acting and Chekhov’s direction deemed excessively stylised. While the company was playing on the West Coast, Hatfield was signed by MGM and cast as Lao San in the studio’s 1944 adaptation of Pearl Buck’s epic novel Dragon Seed, about the effect of Japanese invasion on a family of Chinese farmers. “That was some experience,” said Hatfield later. “A nightmare! Walter Huston was my father, Katharine Hepburn my sister, Aline MacMahon from New York my mother, Turkish Turhan Bey my brother, Russian Akim Tamiroff my uncle – it was a very odd Chinese family!”

Hatfield then auditioned for the role of vain young sensualist who trades his soul for eternal youth in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). “Oscar Wilde’s original Dorian is blond and blue-eyed,” he said later, “and here I was, this gloomy-looking creature. I almost didn’t go to the audition, and when I did, all these blond Adonises were to the right and left of me. I looked like one of their agents!”

The director Albert Lewin had just written and directed a successful transcription of Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence, and he was given a large budget to make an opulent and literate version of Wilde’s novel, though critics objected to the many liberties that were taken with the story. The strict censorship of the time worked to some extent in the film’s favour, making the suggestions of corruption and decadence all the more telling for being oblique.

Harry Stradling’s photography, which blazed into colour from black-and- white when it showed the ageing, increasingly dissolute portrait (by Ivan Albright), won an Academy Award. George Sanders was ideally cast as the cynical misogynist Lord Henry Wotton and Angela Lansbury won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Sybil Vane, the music-hall singer whose plaintive rendition of “Little Yellow Bird” wins Gray’s heart before he is persuaded by Wotton to jilt her cruelly.

Hatfield’s enigmatic, passive performance was given a mixed reception (one critic described his lack of facial animation to that of an actress playing Trilby while under the hypnotic spell of Svengali). Variety reported, “He plays it with little feeling, as apparently intended, and does it well . . . he’s singularly Narcissistic all the way.” The majority felt that the actor’s immobile features and flat tones suggested the mixture of beauty and depravity called for, but although the film was a great success it failed to ignite Hatfield’s film career. “The film didn’t make me popular in Hollywood,” he commented later. “It was too odd, too avant- garde, too ahead of its time. The decadence, the hints of bisexuality and so on, made me a leper! Nobody knew I had a sense of humour, and people wouldn’t even have lunch with me.”

His next film was an independent production, the off-beat Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), adapted by Burgess Meredith from Octave Mirbeau’s 1900 novel Le Journal d’une femme de chambre and directed by Jean Renoir, who was a great admirer of Paulette Goddard, Meredith’s wife and the star of the film. In this strongly cast production, Hatfield held his own as the consumptive son of a wealthy landowner who finds strength and redemption through the love of a chambermaid, but the film, now regarded as a minor classic, was only a succes d’estime at the time of its release, and Hatfield returned to MGM to play a subsidiary role as one of the scientists working on the atom bomb in the studio’s semi-documentary of the weapon’s development, The Beginning or the End (1947).

He had a better role in Michael Curtiz’s enjoyable thriller The Unsuspected (1947), as an artist driven to alcohol by his wife’s infidelities. In Walter Wanger’s costly but ponderous Joan of Arc (1948), Hatfield played Father Pasquerel, chaplain to Joan (Ingrid Bergman), but, when this was followed by roles as the villain in two B movies, The Checkered Coat (1950, as a psychotic killer called Creepy) and Chinatown at Midnight (1950), he decided to return to the stage.

In 1952 he appeared on Broadway as Dominic in Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed, directed by Laurence Olivier, and the following year played Lord Byron and Don Quixote in Tennessee Williams’s Camino Real, directed by Elia Kazan. He was Prince Paul in the Broadway production of Anastasia (1954), played the title role in Julius Caesar in the inaugural season of the American Shakespeare Festival at Connecticut, Stratford (1955) and appeared as Don John in John Gielgud’s legendary production of Much Ado About Nothing (1959).

He occasionally returned to Hollywood, notably for two sexually ambivalent roles: the epicene follower of Billy the Kid (Paul Newman) in Arthur Penn’s film of Gore Vidal’s The Left-Handed Gun (1958) and a homosexual antique dealer considered a suspect in The Boston Strangler (1968) – the scene in which he is questioned by a liberal police officer (Henry Fonda) was one of the most potent in the film. He was in two of 1965’s epics, King of Kings and El Cid, and in 1986 returned to the screen to play the ailing grandfather of Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and Diane Keaton in Crimes of the Heart.

His prolific television work included The Rivals and The Importance of Being Ernest (both 1950), the title roles in The Count of Monte Cristo (1958) and Don Juan in Hell (1960), episodes of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Murder She Wrote, and in 1963 an Emmy-nominated performance as Rothschild in The Invincible Mr Disraeli. In recent years he toured Germany, Northern Ireland, Latvia and Russia in The Son of Whistler’s Mother, a one-man play about James McNeill Whistler, and in July 1997 he made a personal appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in connection with an exhibition of paintings by Albright (including Dorian Gray).

A bachelor, Hurd Hatfield had lived for many years on an estate in Ireland (he also owned a house on Long Island), commuting for acting assignments. He recently stated that he had accepted his permanent association with the role of Gray, even though the film had for him been “a terrible ordeal in self- control, everything being so cerebral”. He added, “But not many actors are fortunate enough to have made a classic. One friend told me it’s a good thing I didn’t make Dracula and have my entire professional life dominated by that!”

William Rukard Hurd Hatfield, actor: born New York 7 December 1918; died Monkstown, Co Cork 25 December 1998.

For “The Independent” obituary on Hurd Hatfield, please click here.

George Brent
George Brent
George Brent

George Brent. TCM Overview.

George Brent made his screen debut in “Under Suspicion” (1930). Initially a slightly tough talking New York type, Brent proved an effective romantic foil to a wide variety of dominant female stars of the 1930s and 40s, most notably at Warner Brothers, where he was tenured from 1932 to 1942. Capable of playing the strong but silent type, or the urbane and cynical, Brent often spent his screen time desiring his leading lady or being pursued by her. His playing was invariably professional and amiable if not dynamic or idiosyncratic, and so he proved a natural in “women’s films” in which the focus was securely on a more galvanizing female actor who was a bigger star. Among his female paramours over the years were Bebe Daniels (“42nd Street,” 1933), Greta Garbo (“The Painted Veil,” 1934), Ginger Rogers (“In Person,” 1935), Myrna Loy (“The Rains Came,” 1939), Barbara Stanwyck (“My Reputation,” 1946), and Claudette Colbert (“Bride for Sale,” 1949).

Brent most often appeared as romantic lead in deferential support to three of Warners’ classiest star actresses: Kay Francis (“Living on Velvet,” 1935, “Give Me Your Heart,” 1936, “Secrets of an Actress,” 1938); Ruth Chatterton (“The Crash,” 1932, “Female,” 1933), to whom he was married from 1932 to 1934; and, particularly, Bette Davis (“Front Page Woman,” 1935, “Jezebel,” 1938, “Dark Victory,” 1939, “The Great Lie,” 1941). He also occasionally enjoyed a role off the beaten path, as in Robert Siodmak’s memorable Gothic melodrama, “The Spiral Staircase” (1946).

Brent sustained his prolific output after he and Warners parted company, but his films gradually diminished in importance in the later 40s. Very much a leading man type, he never made the transition to character roles, and so left the cinema in 1953 after appearing in a series of minor efforts. Two of his other four wives were actresses Constance Worth and Ann Sheridan (opposite whom he made “Honeymoon for Three,” 1941). Brent came out of retirement for 1978’s “Born Again”. The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

For an article on George Brewnt please click here.

Dictionary of Irish biography:

Brent, George (1904–79), actor, was born George Nolan 15 March 1904 at Main St., Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, son of John Nolan, shopkeeper, and Mary Nolan (née McGuinness). Orphaned in 1915, he moved briefly to New York where he was cared for by an aunt, returning later to Dublin to finish his education. He took up acting at the Abbey Theatre, where he had already played some minor roles but, suspected by the British authorities of IRAinvolvement, he fled to Canada, where he continued to act, working in stock companies for two years. He again travelled to New York, finding work with stock companies and founding three of his own. His appearances on Broadway in the late 1920s were noticed in Hollywood. He was talented, but his good looks and reliability were as important in ensuring that he achieved over a hundred screen credits during his career. Most of these were in Warner Brothers productions (1930–53).

Never a powerful box-office draw, he was employed by the studio to carry middle-ranking projects while providing support to A-list stars in larger undertakings. Unambitious and without pretensions, he was happy to take the money while performing quietly and professionally. This led unkind reviewers to describe his performances as having ‘all the animation of a penguin’ and as varying between those in which he was with or without a moustache. Once he abandoned the ‘rugged hero’ roles in which he was initially cast, he provided competent but understated portrayals, making him an ideal foil for the domineering leading ladies of this period. In 1934 he delivered just such a performance opposite Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s ‘The painted veil’. He was also a good foil for Merle Oberon, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Mary Astor, Barbara Stanwyck (four times), Ruth Chatterton (four times), and Bette Davis (eleven times). Davis was one of the many leading ladies with whom he had affairs and Ruth Chatterton was the second (1932–4) of his six wives. He married two other actresses, Constance Worth (1937) and Ann Sheridan (1942–3).

His best performances were probably in Jezebel (1938), for which Davis won an Oscar; Dark victory (1939) with Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan; The rains came (1939), a disaster movie with Tyrone Power; and The spiral staircase (1945), a horror-thriller set in England. He never filmed in Ireland, but starred with James Cagney in a movie about an Irish-American regiment, The fighting 69th (1940). His career entered a terminal slide in the late 1940s when he appeared in dross such as The corpse came C.O.D. (1947), a severe decline for someone who had acted in 42nd Street (1933). When the movie offers dried up he starred in a TV series, Wire service (1956–9), before retiring to run his horse-breeding ranch in California. He made one more brief cameo in the movies playing a judge in the dire Born again (1978), the story of Nixon aide George Colson’s discovery of Christianity when jailed after Watergate. He died of emphysema 27 May 1979 in California

Liam Neeson
18 Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson

 

Liam Neeson has starred in a whole range of notable films – “Schindler’s List”,”Michael Collins”, “Kinsey”, “Les Miserables” and the “Gangs of New York” to name a few.   He was born in Ballymeana in Northern Ireland in 1952 and started his acting career with the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.   One of his first major stage successes was in Brian Friel’s “Translations” and one of his first early movies was John Boorman’s “Excalibur”.   On Broadway he appeared opposite Natasha Richardson in Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie”.   The couple married and had two sons.   Tragically Natasha Richardson died after an accident in 2009.  In the last few years he has surprisingly carved out a prolific career as an action here in thrillers.   An interesting interview in “Hollywood Life” with Liam Neeson can be accessed here.

Liam Neeson (Wikipedia)

Liam Neeson is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has been nominated for a number of awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama

In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players’ Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film Excalibur (1981). Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five films, most notably alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in The Bounty (1984), and Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons in The Mission (1986). He landed a leading role alongside Patrick Swayze in Next of Kin (1989).

Neeson rose to prominence when he starred as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List(1993). He has since starred in other successful films, including the drama Nell (1994), the historical biopic Michael Collins (1996), the 1998 film adaptation of Victor Hugo‘s Les Misérables, the epic space opera Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace(1999), the biographical drama Kinsey (2004), the superhero film Batman Begins(2005), the action thriller series Taken (2008–2014), the survival film The Grey (2011), and the historical drama Silence (2016). He also provided the voices of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy (2005–2010) and the titular monster in A Monster Calls(2016).

Neeson was born on 7 June 1952[1] in Ballymena, County Antrim, the son of Katherine “Kitty” Neeson (née Brown), a cook, and Bernard “Barney” Neeson, a caretaker at the Ballymena Boys All Saints Primary School.[4] Raised Roman Catholic,[5] he was named Liam after the local priest.[6] The third of four siblings, he has three sisters: Elizabeth, Bernadette, and Rosaleen.[7] Neeson said growing up as a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant town made him cautious,[8] and once said he felt like a “second-class” citizen there,[9] but has also said he was never made to feel “inferior or even different” at the town’s predominantly Protestant technical college.[10] Neeson has described himself as out of touch with the politics and history of Northern Ireland until becoming aware of protests by fellow students after Bloody Sunday in 1972, during the Troubles. That experience encouraged him to learn more local history.[10][11] In a 2009 interview, Neeson said, “I never stop thinking about it [the Troubles]. I’ve known guys and girls who have been perpetrators of violence and victims. Protestants and Catholics. It’s part of my DNA.”[12]

At age nine, Neeson began boxing lessons at the All Saints Youth Club, going on to win a number of regional titles before discontinuing at age 17.[13] He acted in school productions during his teens. In 1971, Neeson was enrolled as a physics and computer science student at Queen’s University Belfast, before leaving to work for the Guinness Brewery.[16] At Queen’s, he discovered a talent for football and was spotted by Seán Thomas at Bohemian FC. There was a club trial in Dublin, and Neeson played one game as a substitute against Shamrock Rovers FC but was not offered a contract.

After leaving university, Neeson returned to Ballymena, where he worked in a variety of casual jobs, from a forklift operator at Guinness to a truck driver. He also attended teacher training college for two years in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, before again returning to his hometown. In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players’ Theatre in Belfast, where he performed for two years. He got his first film experience in 1977, playing Jesus Christ and Evangelist in the religious film Pilgrim’s Progress (1978). Neeson moved to Dublin in 1978 after he was offered a part in Ron Hutchinson’s Says I, Says He, a drama about The Troubles, at the Project Arts Centre. He acted in several other Project productions and joined the Abbey Theatre (the National Theatre of Ireland).[citation needed] In 1980, he performed alongside Stephen Rea, Ray McAnally and Mick Lally, playing Doalty in Brian Friel’s play Translations, the first production of Friel’s and Rea’s Field Day Theatre Company, first presented in the Guildhall, Derry, on 23 September 1980.[18]

In 1980, filmmaker John Boorman saw him on stage as Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men and offered him the role of Sir Gawain in the Arthurian film Excalibur. After Excalibur, Neeson moved to London, where he continued working on stage, in small budget films and in television. He lived with the actress Helen Mirren at this time, whom he met working on Excalibur.[19] Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five films, most notably alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in 1984’s The Bounty and Robert De Niro and Jeremy Ironsin 1986’s The Mission. Neeson guest-starred in the third season of the television series Miami Vice in 1986 and moved to Hollywood to star in more high-profile roles in the next year.[19] That year, he starred alongside Cher and Dennis Quaid in Suspect, a role that brought him critical acclaim. In 1988, he starred alongside Clint Eastwood in the fifth Dirty Harry film, “The Dead Pool”, in the role of Peter Swan, a horror film director. In 1990, he followed this with a starring role in Sam Raimi‘s Darkman. Although the film was successful, Neeson’s subsequent years did not bring him the same recognition. In 1993, he joined Ellis Island co-star and future wife Natasha Richardson in the Broadway play Anna Christie. They also worked together in Nell, released the following year.

Director Steven Spielberg offered Neeson the role of Oskar Schindler in his film about the HolocaustSchindler’s List,[20] after seeing him in Anna Christie on Broadway. Kevin CostnerMel Gibson and Warren Beatty all expressed interest in portraying Schindler,[21][22] (the last auditioning),[21] but Neeson was cast in December 1992 after formally auditioning for the role.[22] Neeson read the Keneally book and concluded that his character “enjoyed fookin’ [sic] with the Nazis. In Keneally’s book, it says he was regarded as a kind of a buffoon by them… if the Nazis were New Yorkers, he was from Arkansas. They don’t quite take him seriously, and he used that to full effect.”[23] His critically acclaimed performance earned him a nomination for a Best Actor Oscar, and helped the film earn Best Picture of 1993. (The best actor award went to Tom Hanks for his performance in Philadelphia.) Neeson also garnered BAFTA and Golden Globes nominations for his performance as Schindler. Soon after these accolades, Neeson became an in-demand leading actor. He starred in the subsequent period pieces Rob Roy (1995) and Michael Collins (1996), the latter earning him a win for Best Starring Role at the Venice Film Festivaland another Golden Globe nomination. He went on to star as Jean Valjean in the 1998 adaptation of Victor Hugo‘s Les Misérables and in The Haunting (1999) as Dr. David Marrow.

In 1999, Neeson starred as Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Director George Lucas cast Neeson in the role because he considered him a “master actor, who the other actors will look up to, who has got the qualities of strength that the character demands.”[24] As the first Star Wars film to be released in 16 years, it was surrounded by a large amount of media anticipation. Neeson’s connection to Star Wars started in the Crown BarBelfast. He told Ricki Lake, “I probably wouldn’t have taken the role if it wasn’t for the advice of Peter King in the Crown during a Lyric reunion.”[clarification needed] Despite mixed reviews from critics and fans,[25]The Phantom Menace was an enormous box-office success and remained the most financially successful Star Wars film unadjusted for inflation until Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).[26] Neeson’s performance as Qui-Gon received several positive reviews[27][28] and a Saturn Award nomination. A stock recording of his voice from The Phantom Menace can be heard during a scene in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002).[29] Neeson was later reported to be appearing in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), portraying Qui-Gon again,[30] but ultimately did not. In the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–14), Neeson reprised the role of Qui-Gon once again by voicing the character in two episodes of the third season and one episode of the sixth season.[29]

Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson

Neeson narrated the 2001 documentaries Journey into Amazing Caves, a short film about two scientists who travel around the world to search for material for potential cures, and The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Adventure. The latter won awards at a number of film festivals including Best Documentary from both the Chicago Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review. After being nominated for a Tony Award for his role opposite Laura Linney in The Crucible, Neeson appeared with Harrison Ford in Kathryn Bigelow‘s 2002 submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker as Captain Mikhail Polenin. He was also on the cast of Martin Scorsese‘s Gangs of New York with Leonardo DiCaprioBrendan GleesonCameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis, and played a recently widowed writer in Richard Curtis‘s ensemble comedy Love Actually (2003).[31] His role as Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey again put Neeson up for nomination for a Golden Globe Award, but he lost to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Aviator.

In 2004, Neeson hosted an episode of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live. He starred as a redneck trucker, Marlon Weaver, in an “Appalachian Emergency Room” sketch and as a hippie in a one-off sketch about two stoners (the other played by Amy Poehler) who attempt to borrow a police dog to find their lost stash of marijuana. Despite vowing not to play any Irish stereotypes, Neeson did play a stereotypically Irish man named Lorcan McArdle in the home makeover show parody “You Call This A House, Do Ya?”[32]

In 2005, Neeson played Godfrey of Ibelin in Ridley Scott‘s epic adventure Kingdom of HeavenRa’s al Ghul, one of the main villains in Batman Begins; and Father Bernard in Neil Jordan‘s adaptation of Patrick McCabe‘s novel Breakfast on Pluto. In The Simpsons episode “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star” (2005), he voiced the kindly priest who (briefly) converts Bart and Homer to Catholicism.[33] That same year, he gave his voice to the lion Aslan in the blockbuster fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.[34] In 2007, he starred in the American Civil War epic Seraphim Falls.

Neeson voiced the main character’s father, James, in the video game Fallout 3.[35] Executive producer Todd Howard said, “This role was written with Liam in mind, and provides the dramatic tone for the entire game”.[36] Fallout 3, the third game in the Fallout series, was extremely well received by critics and shipped 4.7 million copies by the end of 2008, the year it was released.

In the director’s commentary of the 2007 Transformers DVD, Michael Bay said he had told the animators to seek inspiration from Neeson in creating Optimus Prime‘s body language. Neeson appeared as Alistair Little in the BBC Northern Ireland/Big Fish Films television drama Five Minutes of Heaven, which tells the true story of a young Protestant man convicted of murdering a Catholic boy during The Troubles.[38]

In 2008 Neeson starred in the action film Taken, a French-produced film also starring Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace, based on a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Pierre Morel. Neeson plays a retired CIA operative from the elite Special Activities Division who sets about tracking down his teenage daughter after she is kidnapped. Taken was a worldwide box office hit, grossing $223.9 million worldwide, making almost $200 million more than its production budget. Neeson has said in interviews that he believed that Taken had put some people off the idea of actually travelling to Europe.[39] Taken brought Neeson back into the center of the public eye and resulted in his being cast in many more big-budget Hollywood movies. That year he also narrated the documentary Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity and again lent his voice to Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008).[40] He also provided a voice for Hayao Miyazaki‘s anime film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which received an August 2009 release.[41]

In 2010, Neeson played Zeus in the remake of the 1981 film, Clash of the Titans. The film was a huge box-office hit, grossing $475 million worldwide.[42] Neeson also starred in Atom Egoyan‘s erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on 26 March 2010. Chloe had enjoyed commercial success and became the Canadian director’s biggest money maker ever.[43] Later the same year, he played John “Hannibal” Smith in the spin-off movie from the television series The A-Team.[44][45]Neeson continued to voice Aslan in the sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

In 2011, Neeson starred in the action-thriller Unknown, a German-British-American co-production of a French book filmed in Berlin in early 2010, and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. This film led to a collaboration between Neeson and Collet-Serra on a series of similar action films including Non-Stop (2014), Run All Night (2015) and The Commuter (2018).

Neeson reunited with Steven Spielberg with plans to star as Abraham Lincoln in the 2012 film Lincoln, based on the book Team of Rivalsby Doris Kearns Goodwin.  In preparation for the role, Neeson visited the District of Columbia and Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln lived before being elected, and read Lincoln’s personal letters. Neeson eventually declined the role, claiming he was “past his sell date” and had grown too old to play Lincoln.  He was replaced by Daniel Day-Lewis.

It was announced in July 2010 that Neeson would guest-star on the new Showtime series The Big C.[49]In 2011, he played himself in BBC2’s series Life’s Too Short. In late 2011, Neeson was cast to play the lead character, a journalist, in a new album recording and arena production of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. He replaced Richard Burton, who had posthumously appeared in the arena production through CGI animation. Neeson did not physically appear on the stage, instead playing the role through the use of 3D holography. In 2012, Neeson starred in Joe Carnahan‘s The Grey. The film received mostly positive reviews and Neeson’s performance received critical acclaim. He also starred in Taken 2, a successful sequel to his 2008 blockbuster.[50] That year, he once again played Ra’s al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final film in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Trilogy. He narrated the first trailer for the film.

On 31 January 2014, it was reported that Neeson would work with director Martin Scorsese again in an adaptation of the novel Silence.[51] Neeson had a supporting role as the henchman Bad Cop/Good Cop in the animated film The Lego Movie, which was a critical and commercial success. Neeson later played Bill Marks in the 2014 action film Non-Stop. The film was released on 28 February 2014. He also appeared, uncredited, as God in the BBC2 series Rev.. Neeson stars in the 2014 film A Walk Among the Tombstones, an adaption of the best-selling novel of the same name, in which he plays former cop Matthew Scudder, a detective hired to hunt the killers of a drug dealer’s wife.

During Super Bowl XLIXSupercell did a Clash of Clans commercial with Neeson playing the game as “AngryNeeson52” and vowing revenge on his opponent “BigBuffetBoy85” while waiting for his scone at a bakery.[52] The appearance was a parody of his role in Taken. In 2016 Neeson narrated the RTÉ One three-part documentary on the Easter Rising1916.[53] In 2016, he voiced the Monster in the Spanish film A Monster Calls.[54]

Neeson opposes what he sees as the unrestricted right to own firearms in the United States[55] and has made calls for gun control.[56] In January 2015, he repeated his views, calling US gun laws a “disgrace” in an interview with Emirati newspaper Gulf News when replying to a question about the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris earlier that month.[57] In response, U.S gun manufacturer Para USA, which provided the weapons used by Neeson in the Taken film series, expressed regret at working with him, saying: “We will no longer provide firearms for use in films starring Liam Neeson and ask that our friends and partners in Hollywood refrain from associating our brand and products with his projects.”[57]

In 2014, he protested against the anti-carriage horse campaign of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said he would outlaw horse-drawn carriages in Central Park once he took office. Neeson wrote an opinion page published in The New York Times citing the carriage trade as a safe one for employees, horses and tourists and noted it was a livelihood for many immigrants.[58]

Neeson narrated a video for Amnesty International in favour of the legalisation of abortion in Ireland, which some conservative and pro-life commentators criticised, calling it “creepy” and “anti-Catholic“.[59][60]

In September 2017, Liam Neeson compared the presidency of Donald Trump to the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon, saying: “Democracy works and no man—and certainly not the President—is above the law. He has to be accountable.”[61]

In January 2018, Neeson raised concerns over the Me Too movement on Ireland’s The Late Late Show,[62] describing the movement as a “witch hunt”, and citing Garrison Keillor‘s dismissal from Minnesota Public Radio.[63]

Neeson lived with actress Helen Mirren during the early 1980s. They met while working on Excalibur (1981). Interviewed by James Liptonfor Inside the Actors Studio, Neeson said Mirren was instrumental in his getting an agent. 

Neeson met actress Natasha Richardson while performing in a revival of the play Anna Christie on Broadway in 1993.[74] They were married on 3 July 1994[75] and had two sons together.[76][77] In October 1998, they won £50,000 ($85,370) in libel damages after the Daily Mirror wrongly claimed that their marriage was suffering. They donated the money to victims of the August 1998 Omagh bombing.[78] In August 2004, they purchased an estate in Millbrook, New York.[79][80][81] On 18 March 2009, Richardson died when she suffered a severe head injury in a skiing accident at the Mont Tremblant Resort, northwest of Montreal. Neeson donated her organs following her death.[82]

Neeson holds British, Irish and American citizenship, having been naturalised as an American citizen in 2009.  In 2009, nearly four decades after he was an undergraduate in physics and computer science at Queen’s University, Belfast, Neeson was awarded an honorary doctorate. It was presented to him in New York by Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Gregson.In March 2011, he was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.Neeson is a patron of Belfast-based charity and film festival CineMagic, which encourages and helps young people to get involved in the movie industry.

heavy smoker earlier in his career, Neeson quit smoking in 2003 while working on Love Actually. When he took the role of Hannibal for the 2010 film adaptation of The A-Team, Neeson had reservations about smoking cigars (a signature trait of the character) in the film due to being an ex-smoker, but agreed to keep that trait intact for the film.[89] In June 2012, Neeson’s publicist denied reports that Neeson was converting to Islam. Neeson has expressed an affection for the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, that he grew accustomed to while filming Taken 2 in Istanbul: “By the third week, it was like I couldn’t live without it. It really became hypnotic and very moving for me in a very special way. Very beautiful.” He also expressed admiration for the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.[91]

In the year 2000, Neeson was offered the “Freedom of the Town of Ballymena” by the Ballymena Borough Council, but because of objections made by members of the Democratic Unionist Party regarding his comments that he had felt like a “second-class citizen” growing up as a Catholic in the town, he declined the award, citing tensions. Following the controversy, Neeson wrote a letter to the council, stating; “I will always remain very proud of my upbringing in, and association with, the town and my country of birth, which I will continue to promote at every opportunity. Indeed I regard the enduring support over the years from all sections of the community in Ballymena as being more than sufficient recognition for any success which I may have achieved as an actor.” Subsequently, on 28 January 2013, Neeson received the Freedom of the Borough from Ballymena Borough Council at a ceremony in the town.

Neeson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in her 2000 New Year Honours. The American Ireland Fund honoured Neeson with their Performing Arts Award for the great distinction he has brought to Ireland at their 2008 Dinner Gala in New York City.  In 2009, at a ceremony in New York, Neeson was awarded an honorary doctorate by Queen’s University, Belfast.[96] On 9 April 2016, he was honoured with the Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award by the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) at the Mansion House, Dublin, with Irish President Michael D. Higgins presenting the award. In 2017, Neeson was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 74 in the list of 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs Worldwide.[98][99] In January 2018, he was awarded the Distinguished Service for the Irish Abroad Award by Irish President Michael D. Higgins, who described it as an award “for Irish people abroad who are making a contribution to humanity”.

John Kavanagh
John Kavanagh

John Kavanagh is an outstanding  actor whose work has mostly been on the stage with occasional forays into film.   His first film ws “Paddy” in 1970.   He was excellent in the television adaptation of William Trevor’s “The Ballroom of Romance” as Bowser Egan.   He travelled to the U.S. to make “The Black Dahlia” in 2006.   He starred recently in TV’s “Father and Son”. as the father of Dougray Scott.   Further details on John Kavangh’s career can be found on “The Agency” website here.

John Kavanagh (Wikipedia)

John Kavanagh is an Irish actor who has acted on the stage, in over twenty films including Cal (1984), Braveheart (1995) and Alexander(2004), and in numerous television programs. His awards include being nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play in 1989 for his role in a revival of Juno and the Paycock.

John Kavanagh had attended the Brendan Smyth Academy since he was 19-years-old and following it, attended Abbey Theatre. In 1967 he joined the company and stayed with them for 10 years before becoming freelancer.[1]

John Kavanagh
John Kavanagh

John Kavanagh is an Irish character actor. He began his career with the Irish comedy Paddy (1970), where he played the small role of Willie Egan. That same year, he played another small role in the World War II film The McKenzie Break (1970), about a P.O.W. camp in Scotland whose prisoners are preparing an escape.

The next twelve years brought Kavanagh no new films, though he continued to act on stage. Finally, he decided to return to screen acting with the theatrical film The Ballroom of Romance (1982), which put him in a romance with actress Brenda Fricker. The film was followed up with the small film Attracta (1983), and the made-for-television movie The Country Girls (1984), starring Sam Neill.

Maureen Potter
Maureen Potter

Kavanagh’s next theatrical film was one of the most famous films of his career: the Irish film Cal (1984), starring Helen Mirren and John Lynch. The film was about a young member of the IRA (Lynch) who is seeking to get out of the organisation. He meets the widow of one of the IRA’s victims (Mirren) and they begin a love affair.

Moving on from this film, Kavanagh acted in a number of films and television series. He participated in the thriller The Fantasist (1986), the crime drama Bellman and True (1987), the action film Joyriders (1988), and the independent film 4 Play: In the Border Country (1991), among others.

Kavanagh’s career picked up considerably in the mid-nineties. He acted alongside such classic actors as Mia Farrow and Jim Broadbentin the John Irvin film Widows’ Peak (1994). Kavanagh then guest-starred in the Sharpe series (starring Sean Bean and Hugh Fraser), where he played the holy man Father Michael Curtis. That same year, he acted in Braveheart (1995) as one of the nobles who routinely changed sides from Scotland to England in the Scottish wars of independence. Kavanagh next acted in Some Mother’s Son (1996), a prison film written by Jim Sheridan, and reunited with Brenda Fricker in Pete’s Meteor (1998).

After a number of smaller films, Kavanagh acted in another historical epic: the Oliver Stone film Alexander (2004), starring Colin FarrellVal Kilmer and Anthony Hopkins. Kavanagh played the role of Parmenion, the old general who questions Alexander’s actions. After a plot to kill the young leader is foiled, Parmenion is accused of being the mastermind behind it and is murdered. While the film was a triumph overseas, its domestic box office was a fraction of the budget, and it received negative reviews for a number of reasons. After this, Kavanagh acted in Brian De Palma‘s murder film The Black Dahlia (2006) which failed at the box office.

Kavanagh rebounded with the successful television series The Tudors (2007). Starring fellow Alexander cast member Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the series plays out the story of England’s turmoil in the time of Henry the Eighth and his life as he breaks from the Catholic Church. In 2012 Kavanagh was cast in Michael Hirst‘s TV series Vikings.

Kavanagh collaborated as vocalist with Paul Brady on the record The Green Crow Caws, a musical celebration of the words of Seán O’Casey.

John Kavanagh is the father of actress Rachel Kavanagh.

Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis Tribute by David Shipman

Laurence Oliver died in 1989, just as Kenneth Branagh was launching the film of ‘Henry V’, which he wrote and directed and in which he starred.   The coincidence made some journalists, especially in the U.S. wonder whether Branagh as the new Olivier.  

Then, when Branagh’s performance was nominated for the annual awards at the end of the year he seldom looked like being strong competition against Daniel Day-Lewis.

  For ‘My Left Foot’ this second young British actor swept all before him.   That is not to say that Day-Lewis is the next Oliver, for which over the years there have been many failed claimants.

  Certainly it does not look likely that Day Lewis will seek greatness on the stage, as Olivier did.   But it would seem that we have a chameleon, one gifted with sensitivity and authority.

  Because of his looks and the Oscar won while so young he may become a leading romantic actor in Hollywood – of that is what he and Hollywood want ( and with the British film industry in its depressed state let us at least hope he will dazzle us with his versatility from there).   But the closest analogy with Olivier is one that both actors probably would appreciated – that other actors are in awe of him”. – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The Independent Years”. (1991).

Daniel Day-Lewis has created a gallery of terrific characters since his first major film in 1985.  He was born in 1957.    His range is astonishing.   Witness his Christy Brown in “My Left Foot” and compare it to Hawkeye the scout in *Last of the Mohicans”, Bill the Butcher in “Gangs of New York” or the right-wing punk in “My Beautiful Launderette”.   As he is very selective about what work he takes on, one can be deprived of his great acting  for long periods of time.   Each new performance is always highly anticipated.

When he was making “The Boxer”, I met him when traveling to London from Dublin when we were beside each other on the plane.   He was very friendly and spoke about his various films especially about “The Last of the Mohicans”.

Interesting interview in “The Guardian” can be accessed here.

Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell

Colin Farrell. (Wikipedia)

Colin Farrell was born in 1976 is an Irish actor. Farrell appeared in the BBC drama Ballykissangel 

In 1998, made his film debut in the Tim Roth-directed drama The War Zone in 1999, and was discovered by Hollywood when Joel Schumacher cast him as the lead in the war drama Tigerland in 2000.

He then starred in Schumacher’s psychological thriller Phone Booth (2003) where he plays a hostage in a New York city phone booth, and the American thrillers S.W.A.T. (2003) and The Recruit (2003), establishing his international box-office appeal.

During that time, he also appeared in Steven Spielberg‘s science fiction thriller Minority Report (2002) and as the villain Bullseye in the superhero film Daredevil (2003).

Barbara Mullen

Barbara Mullen (Wikipedia)

Barbara Mullen was an Irish actress well known in the UK for playing the part of Janet McPherson, the housekeeper in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook. Although the role of Janet brought her fame in later years, she already had made her mark in the theatre.

Mullen’s parents, Pat and Bridget, were from a fishing family on Inishmore island off the coast of County Galway, Ireland. The family had emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where Mullen was born. She made her stage debut as a dancer at the age of three. When her father returned to Aran, later contributing to the making of Man of Aran, the classic documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty,[3] her mother stayed in the U.S. to bring up the 10 children. Mullen sang and danced in various theatres all over the U.S. and then moved to the UK in 1934, where she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

She wrote Life is my Adventure, her autobiography, at 23. A year later she made her London debut, acting the title role in the London West End production of Jeannie, a comedy about a Scottish girl taking a European holiday after coming into money. She became an overnight star.

She later succeeded Celia Johnson as Mrs. De Winter in the Daphne du Maurier‘s Rebecca, played Maggie in a revival of What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie, and played the aged sleuth Miss Marple in The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.

Mullen repeated the role of ‘Jeannie’ on television and in the 1941 British film, which was her cinema debut, alongside Michael Redgrave, and she followed this with appearances in 20 more films, including A Place of One’s OwnCorridor of Mirrors and Innocent Sinners. She also played a notable role in the 1942 film version of Robert Ardrey‘s Thunder Rock as Ellen Kirby, the feminist who is jailed for her subversive ideas.[4]

She was married to documentary film-maker John TaylorMan of Aran’s cameraman, [1]and they had two daughters, Briged and Susannah.

She appeared on television in America and Britain in programmes such as Juno and the Paycock and The Danny Thomas Show before being offered the role in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook, which began on the BBC in 1962. Her character, Janet McPherson, was the ever-efficient housekeeper to Doctors Finlay and Cameron at Arden House in the fictional Scottish village of Tannochbrae. When the series finished on television nine years later, it transferred to radio, running until 1978.

She was the subject of This Is Your Life in March 1964 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in central London.

Barbara Mullen died of a heart attack in London, England on 9 March 1979.

Barbara Mullen was born in 1914 in Boston U.S.A of parents who came from the Aran Islands.   When she was 24 she wrote her autobiography “Life Is My Adventure”.   In 1935 she became an overnight star on the London stage with her performance in the lead in the play “Jeannie”.   She later replaced Celia Johnson in the London stage adaptation of Daphene Du Maurier’s “Rebecca”.   Her greatest fame though came from the long-running BBC series “Dr Finlay’s Casebook” where she played the housekeper Janet.   The series ran from 1962 until 1971 and then ran on radio until 1978.   Barbara Mullen died in 1979.   Interview from 1974 in “The Catholic Herald” can be accessed here.   Good biography on Oxford database here.