Milo O'Shea

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Milo O'Shea (born June 2, 1926 in Dublin , † April 2, 2013 in New York City , New York ) was an Irish actor .

Life

Education and theater

Milo O'Shea's handprints outside the Gaiety Theater in Dublin.

Milo O'Shea grew up in Dublin. His father appeared as a singer in a professional vocal duo; his mother was a harpist and ballet dancer . Both parents encouraged O'Shea to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an actor. He received his education with the religious order of the Christian Brothers in the Synge Street Christian Brothers School (Synge Street CBS). The future actor Donal Donnelly was one of his classmates .

At the age of 10, he played the teenage title role in a radio version of the novel Oliver Twist . At the age of 17 he had his first engagement as an actor with a traveling theater. He was discovered for the stage as an actor in the 1950s by Harry Dillon, who ran the 37 Theater Club upstairs of his The Swiss Gem Company store at 51 Lower O'Connell Street in Dublin. O'Shea first worked as a stage actor. His career began at the Gate Theater and the Gaiety Theater in Dublin, where he appeared in plays by William Shakespeare , Anton Chekhov , Henrik Ibsen and Molière , among others .

In the 1960s he went to the United States , where he first played in provincial theaters. In order to initially survive financially as an actor, he worked as an elevator operator in the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria . In January 1968 he made his debut on Broadway at the Biltmore Theater in the two-person play Under the Stairs (in the original: Staircase ) by Charles Dyer . O'Shea played alongside Eli Wallach (in the role of Charles Dyer) in his role as Harry C. Leeds, an aging homosexual who runs a hairdressing business with his partner. For this role he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969 he appeared on Broadway in the musical Dear World by Jerry Herman . In the musical based on the play Die Irre von Chaillot , he embodied, at the side of Angela Lansbury (as Countess Aurelia), a greedy prospector (in the original: The Sewerman ).

Milo O'Shea had other roles on Broadway in Mrs. Warren's trade of George Bernard Shaw (Vivian Beaumont Theater 1976; as Reverend Samuel Gardner), comedians with Trevor Griffiths (Music Box Theater 1976/1977; as teacher Eddie Waters) and in Fast a Poet by Eugene O'Neill (Helen Hayes Theater 1977/1978). In the 1981/1982 season he took over the trash driver Alfred P. Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady on Broadway at the Booth Theater . In the 1981/1982 season he also took on the role of Father Tim Farley in the play Mass Appeal by Bill C. Davis at the Booth Theater . In it he played a hypocritical, charming, Mercedes- driving priest. For this role, he received his second Tony Award nomination, also in the Best Actor category.

In later years he was on Broadway in the plays and musicals Corpse! (Helen Hayes Theater 1986; as Major Walter Powell), Meet Me in St. Louis (Georg Gershwin Theater 1989/1990; as Grandpa Prophater) and in 1994 in the revival of the Philadelphia play , Here I Come! by Brian Friel .

In 1996 he returned to his artistic roots as a theater actor; at the Gate Theater in Dublin he appeared with David Kelly in the play The Sunny Boys by Neil Simon .

Movie and TV

Milo O'Shea already had first cinema roles as a teenager. Since the 1960s, he has also regularly played roles in film and television. He was initially popular in Britain on television, through his work in the title role of the British BBC - sitcom Me Mammy alongside Yootha Joyce .

O'Shea then took on the lead role of Leopold Bloom in the movie Ulysses , directed by Joseph Strick , in 1967, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by James Joyce . In 1968 he played the kind and kind Father Lorenzo in the Shakespeare film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet ; Directed by Franco Zeffirelli . In the science fiction cult film Barbarella (1968) he played, alongside Jane Fonda in the title role as the astronaut Barbarella, the villainous, mad scientist Dr. Duran Duran. The British pop group Duran Duran chose their band name after this figure. O'Shea later repeated his role as Dr. Duran Duran again in the concert film Arena by the band Duran Duran. In 1973 he played, alongside Vincent Price , the role of Inspector Boot in the horror film Theater des Horens . In 1982 he had, under the direction of Sidney Lumet , an important supporting role as Judge Hoyle in the feature film The Verdict - The Truth and Nothing But Truth . Directed by Neil Jordan , he played the role of Father Sullivan, a pedophile priest in the drama Butcher Boy (1997) .

On American television he was seen in an episode of the sitcom The Golden Girls in 1987 . In 1992, O'Shea had a guest role on the sitcom Cheers . As a result, he played a priest who is against the institution of marriage and the wedding of the barman Woody (played by Woody Harrelson ) and his girlfriend Kelly ( Jackie Swanson ) could only perform under the influence of heavy alcohol. In 1995 a guest role followed in Frasier , the spin-off of the series. He embodied the couple therapist Dr. Schachter, who treats the Crane brothers together. In 2003/2004 he played the Chief Justice of the United States Roy Ashland in the television series The West Wing - In the Center of Power .

Private

Milo O'Shea was married twice. His first marriage to Irish actress Maureen Toal divorced in 1974. Until his death, he was married to the Irish actress Kitty Sullivan , with whom he occasionally appeared together, including in the production of My Fair Lady 1981 on Broadway, with Kitty Sullivan as the understudy in the role of Eliza Doolittle.

O'Shea was the father of two sons, Colm and Steven; however, he and Sullivan had no children together. Since 1976 he lived permanently in New York City in the Manhattan borough . He and his wife Kitty Sullivan acquired American citizenship.

Milo O'Shea died at the age of 86 after a brief illness. The cause of death was given as the result of his Alzheimer's disease .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Milo O'Shea  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Milo O'Shea, an Actor of the Stage and Screen, Dies at 86 Obituary in: New York Times, April 3, 2013
  2. ↑ a b c d e Milo O'Shea death: Tributes to an Irish acting legend who conquered both stage and screen Obituary in: The Belfast Telegraph, April 4, 2013
  3. ^ Episode Information for Fraiser . In: fancast.com . Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. Retrieved October 13, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME O'Shea, Milo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin , Ireland
DATE OF DEATH 2nd April 2013
Place of death New York City , New York, United States