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The Green & the Greasepaint -Ireland & Hollywood *Mod warning 1st page*
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10-07-2010 12:15amOn a Sunday in February 1967 a Blonde Bombshell from Hollywood arrived to give a performance at the Mount Brandon Hotel , Tralee and a letter from the Bishops urging people not to attend the show caused its cancellation.
Here is a video of her arrival
She was Jayne Mansfield, mother of the actress Mariska Hargitay (Olivia Benson in Law & Order SVU) .
She collected her appearence money and left only to die in a car accident in June.
Our exports to Hollywood included characters such as Barry Fitzgerald, comedian & character actor who died in 1961. He played rogue priests, matchmakers and leprechauns,
Now Ireland was not a cultural backwater but when we read of Irish culture but what was but what was Pop Culture really like -our Irish contributions.
But where to start.0
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Maureen O'Sullivan who made the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weismuller grew up in Boyle, Co Rosscommon and was Irelands first real movie star.
She is also mother of Mia Farrow who was Frank Sinatras lover and Woody Allens partner.
Here she is in a swimming scene from Tarzan finds a Mate( I think) from 1934
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Whats the date parameters on this?
Another fascinating thread idea, well done OP! This time I will try to contribute and not just lurk!0 -
Aha Mussolini -parameters well -I suppose 30 years ago would be a good cut off point of 1980.
Movies, stage & screen Irish abroad & those who came here from abroad for "Irish Productions" . Its "Pop" rather than artistic merit so something with cultural merit might be a commercial flop.
So if Music Hall and variety was the Pop taste rather than Othello -then it is in, there is no real starting point.
(If this is a goer we can do music as a seperate one)
As usual, if something or someone is quirky with an Irish Connection put it in and, if an Irish Actor made a respectable living acting in Italian Horror movies between the wars between stints as the second spear in Julius Caesar -he is our boy.( of course, if he appeared in a French skinflick of note for money well we can accept he suffered for his art)
There is no early date but I suppose it will be commercial theatre -anything goes really.Just keep it bright.
If a well known actor came here to act in plays between stints in movies or to learn stagecraft -yup or a risque music hall troupe had a sucessful tour.
An Irish person going to better things abroad is good.0 -
Introducing Lola Montez
Whatever Lola wants... Lola Gets...
Lola Montez (née Eliza Gilbert) was born in Limerick, 1821. Over the course of her short, event-filled life she became the most notorious, celebrated and reviled woman of the nineteenth century.
In politics …
she caused 2 revolts and 1 revolution
was banned from 5 European capitals
enjoyed a brief turbulent reign as Queen of Bavaria
In entertainment…
She invented Burlesque
became Broadway’s biggest star
was a fixture of the Wild West Saloons
embarked on the first tour of Australia
gave lectures that attracted larger audiences than Dickens
she also found time to…
enjoy a string of lovers that included of Liszt, Dumas and Peel
contrive to be at the centre of a string of international sex scandals
murder at least one lover and get away with it
give rise to the saying ‘Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets’.
Despite her unprecedented glamour, celebrity and stardom, she spent her final years destitute on streets of New York and died aged just 41
A caberet act currently are doing a show based on her http://www.lolamontez.ie/story.html
I dont think she ever was queen but was a countess.0 -
His early career was that of an Irish Times cub reporter and he trained as an actor in the Abbey & the Gate.
I share a birthday with him and he is Willfred Brambell who played Paul McCartneys Grandfather in A Hard Days Night
He was also Albert Steptoe
Wilfrid was born in Dublin, Ireland on 22nd March 1912 to a father who was a cashier at a Guinness brewery, and a mother, Edith Marks, who was an opera singer. Wilfrid Brambell's first foray into acting was at the age of just two, entertaining wounded soldiers in World War One. As a teen, he had a soprano voice, and it won him medals at festivals, until his voice broke during an argument with an aunt! After leaving school, he became a reporter for The Irish Times, and started amateur dramatics at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Turning professional, he then moved to Dublin's Gate Theatre, then on tour with ENSA during the Second world War, and then into repertory theatre at Bristol, Chesterfield and Swansea. His London appearances included roles in Canterbury Tales and The Ghost Train (written by Dad's Army actor Arnold Ridley - Private Godfrey). His Broadway career was less successful, however, as the first night of the play Kelly was also the last. The advent of regular television programming in Britain brought Wilfrid regular roles on TV, not least in Arthur Askey's shows, plus many diverse roles such as in The Quatermass Experiment and as a tramp in No Fixed Abode. It was this last role which was seen by two British writers, and he was instantly signed-up for Galton and Simpson's new production The Offer, part of their Comedy Playhouse series of one-off TV plays. The comedy, about a retired rag-and-bone dealer and his son, was commissioned as a series and in 1962 what became the classic sitcom Steptoe and Son was born. By now, Wilfrid was in demand as an actor and appeared in many more roles, including films such as The Thirty-Nine Steps, Carry On Again Doctor, Dry Rot and as Paul McCartney's grandfather in The Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night. On a personal level, Wilfrid's wife Molly was found to have been made pregnant by a lodger and he subsequently threw her out, divorcing her on grounds of adultery. She died the following year. Many years later Wilfrid Brambell shared his Pimlico home with a male Chinese-born companion Yussof Ben mai Saman, to whom he left his fortune after his death in London from cancer on 18th January 1985.
Remembering The Banana Box: "[Wilfrid Brambell] was wonderful. Such a dapper, wee man. He used to wear a diamond ring, beautiful suits, starched collar and tie and and would have his hair slicked back...He was very funny off stage as well as on, and would tell the filthiest jokes - he just made a perfect Rooksby."
http://www.leonardrossiter.com/risingdamp/BiogsSupp.html
A very dapper man he had a difficult relationship with his Steptoe Co Star Harry Corbett who really did not like being famous for that show.0 -
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John McCormack (14 June 1884 – 16 September 1945), was a world-famous Irish tenor and recording artist, celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his diction and breath control. He was also a Papal Count.
From Athlone where Athlone IT have named a hall after him, I've been in AIT.
There is also a statue in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin
At one time he certainly was the most famous singer in the world.
Had a number of minor film roles including Citizen Kane, the Orson Welles film.
I saw that film a number of years ago, can't remember his cameo part so I'll be watching again for sure.
Also in Wings of the Morning, the first British colour film. I did have a youtube clip of him acting but can't for the life of me find it. Maybe it was taken down, booo!
We all know it's a Long Way to Tipperary, adopted by the British Army in WW1, John McCormack was the first singer to record it.
And collaborated with Enrico Caruso for a number of songs.
He sold over 200 million records, is there any modern day artist to do that!
If ye don't subscribe to the Newstalk Talking history podcasts already, then do it now! There on itunes. There was an episode on him
Here is a short documentary and another for a well known song.
Now I know a lot/most people nowadays would have no interest in his style of music but all the same, 200 million record sales and worldwide fame, without doubt the most famous singer Ireland ever had and ever will have
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Now we really are going tabloid - can't see what this has to do with genuine "history" IMO.0
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Now we really are going tabloid - can't see what this has to do with genuine "history" IMO.
It is part of our heritage as much a Joyce or Myles na Gopaleen is. I have read both but prefer Andy McNab.
The history I was taught made reference to the first performances of the Playboy of the Western World and its short run and hostile reception. So if people werent attending that what were they watching.
I also was brought up with the idea that Siobhain McKenna's performances were acting , which they were, but her ouevre and genre were not to my taste so what was the popular entertainment and culture. Maureen O'Sullivan was more successful and I will bet lots of people didnt know of Mia Farrows Irish connection or that Albert Steptoe was Irish. I didn't. Also, it shows how irish performers stacked up abroad.
Our portrayal of Irish culture and taste in Ireland has been a bit revisionist.Ulysses and Lady Chatterly's Lover may both have been on the list of banned books in ireland but it was the DH Lawrence book that my granny obtained from abroad. She had no interest in Joyce.0 -
It is part of our heritage as much a Joyce or Myles na Gopaleen is. I have read both but prefer Andy McNab.
The history I was taught made reference to the first performances of the Playboy of the Western World and its short run and hostile reception. So if people werent attending that what were they watching.
I also was brought up with the idea that Siobhain McKenna's performances were acting , which they were, but her ouevre and genre were not to my taste so what was the popular entertainment and culture. Maureen O'Sullivan was more successful and I will bet lots of people didnt know of Mia Farrows Irish connection or that Albert Steptoe was Irish. I didn't. Also, it shows how irish performers stacked up abroad.
Our portrayal of Irish culture and taste in Ireland has been a bit revisionist.
Well then this is "culture" but not history...TBH I think the OP is there to shock more than anything else. I can understand how you might want to shake conventions [which seems to be your argument] - but I don't think this is the forum to do so.
I still don't think that this thread belongs on a History forum.
Actually - ironically - Ulysses was never banned in Ireland. It was banned just about worldwide though.0 -
Well then this is "culture" but not history...TBH I think the OP is there to shock more than anything else. I can understand how you might want to shake conventions [which seems to be your argument] - but I don't think this is the forum to do so.
I don't think there is anything shocking about anything here, probably new to people but hardly earth shattering.Its a bit different to DeValera's Ireland of comely maidens at the crossroads or the History of Ireland as retold by the Dept of Education thru the nuns & christian brothers.
I am not alone in thinking this way take this academic reviewONE OF THE most under-rated plays of the last decade was Declan Hughes’s Shiver. Premiering in 2003, it focused on two middle-aged couples who were struggling to come to terms with life in Celtic Tiger Dublin. They had wealth but lacked values; they’d rejected traditional Irish culture, but had nothing to replace it with. Their predicament was brilliantly encapsulated by one of Hughes’s characters. “Well you see,” she drawled, drunkenly, “we’ve had enough of dead mammies and peeling potatoes and farms and bogs and ****ing . . . all that old tweedy ****ing . . .” And she trailed off, searching for the right words. “Seamus Heaney is made of tweed,” she concluded.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0417/1224268510617.html
We also have the late Philip Ryans book "The Lost Theatres of Dublin"as edited by his son Phil Chevron of the Pogues that is from an insider and a fan.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Theatres-Dublin-Philip-Ryan/dp/0952607611Philip B. (Brendan) Ryan was my father, author of a small number of fairly-definitive tomes on Irish vaudeville and variety, notably biographies of Noel Purcell and Jimmy O'Dea. When he was dying in 1997, his final book, The Lost Theatres Of Dublin was, theoretically, with his publisher, but his final illness had prevented him, unsurprisingly, from giving it his fullest attention. About a year later, I made good on my promise to him to "finish" the book. Primarily, this just involved editing and repairing some of the text, adding substantially to what had, for some unexplained reason, been an uncharacteristically small supply of illustrations. Finally, I added a Foreword explaining the circumstances of the publication and paying tribute to my dad's devotion to both theatre and Dublin and the part his enthusiasms played in my own life. By neat symmetry, this piece worked well with an Afterword in a more minor key by Noel Sheridan, the son of Cecil Sheridan, the great Dublin comic for whom my father had written some early comic sketches in the 1940s and which Pop had admitted into the book's text several years earlier.
I think that our heritage was a bit more dynamic and less serious than its being made out to be.0 -
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Look, when you start dragging out that old chestnut - "comely maidens at the crossroads" [taken out of context I must say] and try to replace it with a phony air brushed photo - for what other purpose than to make a statement that you reject the phony past with a phony present - then I know you are only trying to shock and shake up what you see as false conventions.
This is not history - it is based on gossip, hearsay [maybe a personal agenda] and tabloid newspaper tactics. That is all I am saying.0 -
But Marchdub there is plenty of scope here for everyone on the origans of Irish Theatre and its origans and crossover between popular culture and highbrow culture. How it travelled backward and forward.
I am just saying that the definitions used are very narrow and dont reflect the popular tradition. I could of course be wrong.
You do have George Bernard Shaws Pygmallion that was adapted as My Fair Lady.
But equally so you have the Beatles where 3 of the 4 were of Irish descent and Catholic - Harrisons from Wexford and the famous pic of the Beatles and the Farrows with the Maharishi in India owed a lot to the Irish Diaspora
The Beatles song Dear Prudence was written about Prudence Farrow -daughter of Irishwoman "You Tarzan -Me Jane" Maureen O'Sullivan encircled above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Prudence
So the Irish did get around and some were quite successful and culture travels and adapts -so why not celebrate that part of it too.0 -
Ever wonder where the first post reformation theatre was in Europe - it was Dublin -with the gorgeous hippychick sounding name of the "Smock Alley Theatre" .
Recent archaeological excavations at the former SS church of St Michael and John have finally unraveled the last mysteries of the Smock alley theatre, the first post Restoration purpose-built theatre in Europe. The foundation stone was laid in 1662, by John Ogilby, Master of the Revels, and, despite a collapse in 1671 and 1701, and a ‘rebuilding in 1735’, it remained the most important theatre in Dublin until it closed its doors in 1788, claiming the title of ‘Theatre Royal’ for much of this period. The first play performed was Fletcher’s ‘wit without money’ and the succeeding historical records, which document the great characters involved, the students riots and general intrigue, provide a social history of Dublin society when theatre was an integral part of the life of all city dwellers.
More details on the excavations here
http://www.mglarc.com/index.php/dublin-based/223-smock-alley-theatre.html
So what and who performed?
EDIT - I found this gemSmock-alley Theatre catered a great deal for the taste of the day in the matter of ballad operas, or musical comedies. Henry Brooke's Jack the Giant Queller (1748) was an enormous success, but, as some of the songs were considered of a Jacobite and satirical tendency "it was prohibited after one night's performance."[1] This opera teems with old Irish airs. At the close of the year 1749, J. F. Lampe and Pasquali were engaged at Smock-alley; and the Charitable Musical Society, whose funds amounted to £300, engaged for that sum Lampe and Pasquali for a series of concerts. In 1750 this society had released 1,200 prisoners, whose debts and fees exceeded £9,000.
http://www.libraryireland.com/IrishMusic/XXVI.php
So who have you got here.
Henry Brooke was an Irish Novelist and Dramatist who was anti censorship and would have used satire as a tool to get around it.
John Frederick Sharpe was an English musician and friend of Handel whose Messiah Premiered in Dublin and Pasquali an Italian Muso. They wrote popular opera's.
So really the Theatre was quiet subversive but also Irish theatre attracted world class talent of its day.It was entertainment.
This readable essay by Oliver Goldsmith the 18th Century Dramatist discusses it
http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/essay_on_the_theatre_001.html
His Biography
http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/oliver_goldsmith_001.html
You also had George Farquhar
http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/george_farquhar_001.html
And Richard Brinsley Sheridan
http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/richard_brinsley_sheridan_001.html
So you had a very cosmopolitan base at the very very begining.0 -
Well for what it's worth....I love this thread.0
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Dublin born Cedric Gibbons designed the statuette used in the Oscars.
"English" actor Richard Todd was born in Dublin.
One of the first black English actresses to appear on the stage in Dublin was my Gt Aunt, Ida Shepley. She also did stints in Broadway and the West End. She had been trained by the daughter of one of the first black actors to appear in Ireland, Ira Aldridge, who appeared in Dublin in 1831.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge0 -
Look, when you start dragging out that old chestnut - "comely maidens at the crossroads" [taken out of context I must say] and try to replace it with a phony air brushed photo - for what other purpose than to make a statement that you reject the phony past with a phony present - then I know you are only trying to shock and shake up what you see as false conventions.
This is not history - it is based on gossip, hearsay [maybe a personal agenda] and tabloid newspaper tactics. That is all I am saying.
Let's just call it a heritage thread so and leave the off topic stuff at that.0 -
johnny_doyle wrote: »Dublin born Cedric Gibbons designed the statuette used in the Oscars.
"English" actor Richard Todd was born in Dublin.
One of the first black English actresses to appear on the stage in Dublin was my Gt Aunt, Ida Shepley. She also did stints in Broadway and the West End. She had been trained by the daughter of one of the first black actors to appear in Ireland, Ira Aldridge, who appeared in Dublin in 1831.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge
Wow -thats impressive i would love to know more0 -
johnny_doyle wrote: »
One of the first black English actresses to appear on the stage in Dublin was my Gt Aunt, Ida Shepley. She also did stints in Broadway and the West End. She had been trained by the daughter of one of the first black actors to appear in Ireland, Ira Aldridge, who appeared in Dublin in 1831.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge
A bit of a shakespeare fan well you will appreciate these.
David Garrick , the McDreamy of this day co managed Smock Alley during 1745/46.
Tom King, probably the leading comic actor after Garrick of that era in London spend most of the 1750's working in Smock Alley.
So thats the kind of talent that was kncking around there.
Preceeding Smock Alley was the the Theatre Royal Werbugh Street.
Another Theatre opened up in the 1730sNow remembered primarily for having discovered the Irish actress Margaret Woffington, Madame Violante was a celebrated rope-dancer who opened her own theater in Dublin in 1730, after which it operated sporadically until 1735 (Greene and Clark 25-28). (4) Since Violante did not have a royal patent, she was not entitled to produce "legitimate" theater. At first she restricted herself to acrobatics, dance, and pantomime, but eventually branched out into drama--at which point the government closed her down. As William Chetwood remarks in his 1749 history of the Irish theater, Violante's company of young actors and actresses "play'd several Dramatic pieces with grotesque entertainments, till stop'd by the Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin, Mrs. Violante, having no Sanction, or proper Authority to exhibit such Entertainment. The Place is put to another use" (Chetwood 61). The "other use," as Chetwood's footnote to this passage informs us, was as the original site of the Lying-In Hospital (61n).0 -
brianthebard wrote: »Let's just call it a heritage thread so and leave the off topic stuff at that.
Oh, is that what it's called? I thought the erotic OP photo was called 'the exploitation or the objectification of women' but come to think of it you're right, that's all part of our heritage.0 -
Oh, is that what it's called? I thought the erotic OP photo was called 'the exploitation or the objectification of women' but come to think of it you're right, that's all part of our heritage.
No MarchDub -I am taking a particular historical event that happened in Tralee , and as a starting point for a thread I am using a picture to convey what the bishops objections might have been about for people who do not know and what the show they were protesting about may have been about.
You make an interesting point but I see it as how the power of the bishops could" ban" an event and you are an unlikely ally for their actions when there was a popular demand for the Show.As its Tralee I wonder if there is room to do a Rose of Tralee thread in that context.The first beauty pageants in Ireland etc and what our Irish glamour defintitions were.
It always strikes me that the history forum is always guy stuff and no attempt is made to widen what we talk about.0 -
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Here is a lively little piece on Peggy WoffingtonCHAPTER IIIFACTS about the origins of Margaret Woffington (as she signed her-
WOFFINGTON
1742-1745
1
self) are extremely hard to find. Legends abound. Even the sur-
name which she made famous has been declared to be one which she
adopted for stage purposes in place of the less interesting Murphy.
Her date of birth has been given as anything between 1713 and 1720.
She never produced any visible relatives except a widowed mother,
a devout Catholic, and a very beautiful, much younger sister, Mary,
"Polly". But the name of Woffington was not uncommon in
Dublin since 1675, and it seems probable that she was the daughter
of one Arthur or John Woffington, a journeyman bricklayer, who
died when she was very young, according to one account, by falling
off a ladder. If it be true that a Robert Woffington, a Vicar Choral
at St Patrick's Cathedral, was her uncle, neither ever acknowledged
the relationship. William Rufus Chetwood, actor, prompter and
dramatist, owner of a bookshop over Tom's Coffee-House in Covent
Garden, and a contemporary, staunchly claims that she was "born
of reputable parents who gave her a genteel education". When
Garrick, aged twenty-three, first saw her perform, in 1740, she may
have been four years his senior, or three years younger; but her
youth had been far from sheltered. It had been spent in dire poverty.
Her mother was said to have failed to pay the rent for a huckster's
shop on a Dublin quayside and descended to selling watercress in the
streets. Charles Lee Lewes, who became an actor when Woffington
was in her prime, believed that she had assisted her mother as a
street-seller. "I have met with more than one in Dublin who
assured me that they remembered to have seen the lovely Peggy,
with a little dish upon her hand, and without shoes to cover her
delicate feet, crying through College Green, Dame Street and other
parts of that end of the town. 'All this fine salad for a ha'penny!
All for a ha'penny! All for a ha'penny here!'" About 1727, a
French acrobat, Madame Violante, was performing in a booth-
theatre near College Green. Tom King, who acted in Dublin as a
beginner when Margaret Woffington was a leading lady, believed that
her stage career had begun as a baby, suspended in a basket attached
to the feet of Madame Violante in a rope-walking act. As a child-
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=3597254
A nice little piece here about Signora Violante and her Dance Troupe .
Now after she established in 1729 you had a number of other "Booth" theatres set up
http://www.jstor.org/pss/30071051
Peggy Woffington was a leading lady with the Smock Alley Company when Tom King was in Dublin.
Here is a link about the theatres in Dublin c 1720 -45 for those who are interested
- you had Smock Alley -for people of Quality, Aungier St and another plus Signora Violante and her former lead dancer with their Booth Theatres. Add to this Am-Dram etc at Dublin Castle and the strollers and the private "pub shows" and it is fairly diverse.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=l11r99P7I9MC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=booth+theatres+dublin&source=bl&ots=GEmrcKzm7d&sig=uSVMQS5nYmK24_cldzavdEPD6kg&hl=en&ei=IhU7TJeWMZPw0wTektDoAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=booth%20theatres%20dublin&f=false0 -
She was the only female member and President of the Liberty Beefsteak Club founded by Thomas Sheridan in 1749.
She was a celebrated actress in Georgian London and lived openly with David Garrick and had numerous affairs including the Earl of Darnley.
She was generous supporting her mother and her sister Mary (Polly) another beauty. She also funded some Alms houses for the Poor.
She also worked on her acting and a shrill voice worked more for comedy than tragedy and she practiced to eliminate it.
Interestingly, when age and illness meant she could no longer work she lived well supporting herself having left Garrick years earlier. Celebreties in that era such as Tom King & Ned Shutter both died in poverty.
Peggy had a nightclub named after her - what became Club Nassau.
Next time I pass Molly Malones statue in College Green - I will be thinking'All this fine salad for a ha'penny!
All for a ha'penny! All for a ha'penny here
Here's to Margaret Woffington.0 -
And Mary (Polly) Woffington a/k/a Mrs Cholmondeley- what happened to her.
Well she married well and had Dr Johnson & Horace Walpole as friends and advisors.
Read a bit here.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=5A4EHRa1dfcC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=mary+woffington+descendants&source=bl&ots=ISgCNwac-O&sig=RMuUpxalmyA6qNIj_FAFLTTUhqo&hl=en&ei=GVw7TL7ZIaKI0wTUsanlAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Milo O'Shea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_O'Shea
This guy is a legend and starred in the movie version of Ulysses
An amazingly versatile actor he popped up movies as a character actor every bit as much as Cyril Cusack. Judges, priests etc and you might have seen him in Spin City and the West Wing.
He turned up in Barberrella with Jane Fonda - now this was one controversial movie. Is it art or a french skinflick :eek:
Where doyou go after playing Leopold Bloom .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film)
He is also a very accomplised and daring stage actor.0 -
This thread just gets further and further away from having anything to do with either history or heritage in my opinion.0
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This thread just gets further and further away from having anything to do with either history or heritage in my opinion.
History deals with personalities and past events from the past that helped to shape the present.
Margaret Woffington is every bit a part of it as Wolfe Tone and popular culture gives us an insight of how people lived and their society.She was a real life Molly Malone.
Have you ever wondered if Cherie Blair daughter of the actor Tony Booth is an any way connected to the US John Wilkes Booth the actor who assasinated Abraham Lincoln. Well I do.(must check that)
EDIT - found somethingFollowing another thread, I have now pinned down the relationship
between Cherie Blair, wife of Tony Blair, and John Wilkes Booth, the
assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Curiously enough, this cropped up only
this morning in the Daily Mail gossip column as part of an item about
Harrison Ford playing the man who killed Booth in a new film. The
relationship is also mentioned on several websites found with Google.
John Wilkes Booth's father was Junius Brutus Booth, born in London in
1796. He had a younger brother born in 1798, called Algernon Sydney
Booth. They were the sons of Richard Booth and Elizabeth Game, who
were married in London in 1795. It seems Algernon Sydney Booth was
the great-great-grandfather of the actor Tony (Anthony) Booth,
Cherie's father, who was born in Liverpool in 1931.
Junius Booth and his second wife Mary Ann Holmes left England in 1821
and John Wilkes Booth was born in 1838. The rest, as they say, is
history. Most of the events are on the IGI, albeit LDS private
submissions. However, with such well-known and high-profile people,
it seems fairly likely we can accept them for once.
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.genealogy.britain/2006-02/msg01867.html
And the Blairs Irish connections
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211450/The-young-OBlairs--Former-Prime-Ministers-children-Irish-passports-thanks-grandmother.html
And it seems the Blairs stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.
Off topic I know but it is fun .0 -
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Morlar there's already a mod warning in thread about off topic posting on the first page. If you haven't read it I suggest you should. I don't see any difference between this sort of thread and documentaries on tv such as 'who do you think you are' or TG4's gangs in America programmes, or even RTE's reeling in the years. If anything this thread is just a specific example of the sort of topics they cover in rity. Now I won't have any more off topic questions about the validity of the thread. Mod.0
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johnny_doyle wrote: »Dublin born Cedric Gibbons designed the statuette used in the Oscars.
"English" actor Richard Todd was born in Dublin.
One of the first black English actresses to appear on the stage in Dublin was my Gt Aunt, Ida Shepley. She also did stints in Broadway and the West End. She had been trained by the daughter of one of the first black actors to appear in Ireland, Ira Aldridge, who appeared in Dublin in 1831.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge
Being called a "Roscius" is an accolade afforded a Shakespearean actor by their peers and theatre managers. He was praised by Edmund Kean who was probably one of the best Shakesperean actors of all time.Confronted with the persistent disparagement and harrassment that black actors had to endure in the antebellum United States, Aldridge emigrated to England, where he became a dresser to the British actor Henry Wallack. He gradually progressed to increasingly larger roles; by 1825, he had top billing at London's Coburg Theatre as Oronoko in A Slave's Revenge, soon to be followed by the role of Gambia in The Slave and the title role of Shakespeare's Othello. He also played major roles in plays such as The Castle Spectre and The Padlock and played several roles of specifically white characters, including Captain Dirk Hatteraick and Bertram in Rev. R. C. Maturin's Bertram, the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III (play), and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
By the 1830s, he had married an English woman named Margaret Gill, and earned the cognomen the "African Roscius". In 1831 he successfully played in Dublin, several locations in southern Ireland, Bath, and Edinburgh. Edmund Kean praised his Othello; some took him to task for taking liberties with the text, while others attacked his race.
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/ira-aldridge/
http://www.lib.subr.edu/BLACK_HISTORY/Aldridge,_Ira_Frederick_3.pdf
On your great auntSuccessful black shows on the 1940s London stage included the musical 'Calypso', featuring the West Indian actor Edric Connor, and the stage play 'Deep are the Roots' starring Gordon Heath.
The Negro Repertory Arts Theatre was founded by Robert Adams and produced many plays including Eugene O'Neill's play 'All God's Chillun Got Wings', a play about an inter-racial love affair between a white woman and a black man, at Colchester in 1944.
In 1946 Ida Shepley appeared in the Unity Worker's Theatre revival of 'All God's Chillun Got Wings', and the first black British dance company, Ballet Negres was established.
Ida Shepley is standingBorn in Crewe, England (UK) in 1908, Ida Shepley trained as a singer with voice coach Amanda Ira Aldridge, daughter of the great black actor, Ira Aldridge, before joining the radical company at Unity Worker's Theatre. Shepley was one of only two black actors in the company in this Unity production, so (as seen above) white actors playing black characters had to 'black up'.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/features/black_performance/history/1940-1969/index.html
She also had a TV career
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1553896/filmogenre0 -
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Malone, Edmond, 1741–1812, English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar, b. Ireland. His studies (1778) in the chronology of Shakespeare's plays are still considered highly valuable. He was among the first to see through the supposed antiquity of the poems of Thomas Chatterton, and in 1796 he exposed the Shakespearean forgeries of William Ireland. His monumental edition of Shakespeare was left unfinished at his death and was completed (21 vol., 1821) by Boswell's son James. The Malone Society, founded in 1907 for the purpose of furthering the study of early English drama by printing dramatic texts and documents, was named after him.
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0831409.html
This guy was the foremost Shakespearean Scholar of his day and even today. If you studied Shakespeare at school you probably did so from a version that he compiled and became the standard in use.
He was a bit of a detective too exposing the forger William Ireland.
Where you get plays you get writers ,adapters and support staff.
This guy was rather special.
So why put him in. Lots of actors worked their way up from the lower classes and this guy was an intellectual. So the acting profession was fairly egalitarian.0
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