20th-century Irish actor, playwright, writer, and artist
Micheal Mac Liammoir
|
---|
Mac Liammoir in
The Importance of Being Oscar
|
Born
| Alfred Lee Willmore
(
1899-10-25
)
25 October 1899
|
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Died
| 6 March 1978
(1978-03-06)
(aged 78)
Dublin, Ireland
|
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Occupation(s)
| Actor, author, playwright, painter, poet, impresario
|
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Known for
| Co-founding the
Gate Theatre
|
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Micheal Mac Liammoir
(born
Alfred Lee Willmore
; 25 October 1899 ? 6 March 1978) was an actor, designer, dramatist, writer, and
impresario
in 20th-century Ireland. Though born in London to an English family with no Irish connections, he emigrated to Ireland in early adulthood, changed his name, invented an Irish ancestry, and remained based there for the rest of his life, successfully maintaining a fabricated identity as a native Irishman born in
Cork
.
With his partner,
Hilton Edwards
, and two others, Mac Liammoir founded the
Gate Theatre
in Dublin, and became one of the most recognisable figures in the arts in twentieth-century Ireland. As well as acting at the Gate and internationally, he designed numerous productions, wrote eleven plays, and published stories, verse and travel books in Irish and English. He wrote and appeared in three one-man shows, of which
The Importance of Being Oscar
(1960) was the most celebrated, achieving more than 1,300 performances.
Life and career
[
edit
]
Early years
[
edit
]
Mac Liammoir was born Alfred Lee Willmore, in
Willesden
, in north-west London, into a family with no Irish connections. He was the youngest child and only son of Alfred George Willmore (1863?1934), a forage buyer for the firm of Whitney's of
Bayswater
, and his wife, Mary,
nee
Lee (1867?1918).
[1]
[n 1]
He attended primary school in Willesden and then attended a children's theatre academy run by Lila Field. He became a professional actor at the age of twelve; his sister Marjorie took charge of his general education and was his chaperone on tours that included visits to venues in Ireland as well as Britain. He made his debut in 1911, as King Goldfish in Field's play
The Goldfish
,
[2]
alongside another child actor,
Noel Coward
.
[3]
He later said, "I learned from Lila Field the absolute ABC of getting on and off the stage without disgracing oneself; I learned what a cue meant, what a stick of
greasepaint
was, the elements of timing, and that ghastly thing, the exploitation of childish charm".
[4]
In September of that year he first worked for
Sir Herbert Tree
, playing Macduff's son in
Macbeth
.
[2]
From Tree he quickly learned "a rude lesson" that charm was not enough: "I think it was Tree who first awoke the actor's imagination in me and made me feel the terror of the Witches' Coven and the horror of the ghost-haunted banquet".
[4]
In the Christmas season of 1911 he played Michael Darling in
Peter Pan
, and in June 1912, he played
Oliver Twist
in Tree's revival of the stage version of the novel.
[2]
After two further child roles, and appearances in four silent films (now lost) he temporarily abandoned acting. After a summer in Spain, visiting his grandparents and becoming fluent in Spanish,
[5]
he studied painting at
Willesden Polytechnic
and then the
Slade School of Art
in 1915?16.
[1]
With a fellow student, Mary O'Keefe, he attended Irish language classes at the
Ludgate Circus
branch of the
Gaelic League
; the biographer Christopher Fitz-Simon thinks it probable that they saw plays by
W. B. Yeats
,
Lady Gregory
and
J. M. Synge
during the visits of the
Abbey Theatre
company in this period.
[n 2]
Both students developed a keen interest in the
Irish Literary Revival
.
[1]
Move to Ireland
[
edit
]
Mac Liammoir, now calling himself "Michael Willmore", made a brief return to the stage in February 1917, in
Felix Gets a Month
, a "whimsical comedy" at the
Haymarket Theatre
.
[2]
[7]
The following month he went with O'Keefe and her mother to Ireland, the former having contracted
tuberculosis
and been prescribed "fresh air", the latter anxious to escape
Zeppelin
raids. Fitz-Simon suggests that Mac Liammoir's motive was to escape conscription into the army in the latter stages of the
First World War
.
[1]
In Ireland Mac Liammoir earned a modest living as a freelance illustrator for newspapers and books, acted from time to time, and designed for the Irish Theatre and Dublin Drama League.
[1]
[2]
He assimilated himself into Irish culture and politics. He campaigned for
Sinn Fein
in the
1918 General Election
, published his first book, a collection of stories in Irish, in 1922, and continued to write verse and prose in Irish and English. He experimented with various gaelicised versions of his name, including "Mac Uaimmhoir" and "Mac Liaimmhoir".
[5]
He built up a fictitious identity as a native Irishman born in Cork.
[1]
During most of the 1920s Mac Liammoir continued to live with the O'Keefes. In search of a healthy environment for Mary they moved between Switzerland and the French riviera. He exhibited successfully in local galleries and, in 1923, at the Leigh Gallery in London.
[1]
He later wrote a book of recollections ? in Irish ? about his travels.
[5]
In 1925 he starred in a silent film,
Land of Her Fathers
with a cast of mainly
Abbey Theatre
players.
[8]
Mary O'Keefe died in 1927. Mac Liammoir, now known by that name, returned to the theatre. His sister Marjorie had married the actor-manager
Anew McMaster
whose touring company Mac Liammoir joined,
[1]
playing Shakespearean roles including Bassanio in
The Merchant of Venice
, Laertes in
Hamlet
and Cassio in
Othello
.
[2]
While on tour in the south of Ireland, he met another young English actor,
Hilton Edwards
, who was to become his lifelong partner, both personal and professional. Mac Liammoir and Edwards decided to settle in Dublin, with the intention of setting up their own theatre there.
[9]
Gate Theatre
[
edit
]
In 1928 Mac Liammoir wrote, directed, designed and starred in
Diarmuid and Grainne
for the opening of the Irish language theatre,
An Taibhdhearc
, in
Galway
.
[10]
He subsequently produced twenty plays there.
[2]
Also in 1928, Mac Liammoir was one of the four founders of the Gate Theatre Studio, later simply the Gate Theatre, alongside
Hilton Edwards
,
Daisy Bannard Cogley
,
[11]
and Gearoid O Lochlainn.
[12]
[13]
[14]
Mac Liammoir and Edwards had been considering theatrical plans for Dublin, while Bannard Cogley (a friend of Mac Liammoir) and O Lochlainn had been discussing finding a more permanent theatre space, and they met, along with some mutual friends, in Bannard Cogley's club at 7 Harcourt Street, in spring 1928. After further meetings, the quartet rented the Peacock Theatre and launched the Gate Theatre Studio there on 14 October 1928.
[15]
The theatre studio spent its early years at the 102-seat Peacock Theatre
[16]
and opened with a production of
Peer Gynt
, and Mac Liammoir subsequently acted in and designed nearly 300 productions at the Peacock and, after the company gained its own home in 1930, on Cavendish Row, at the Gate.
[17]
He appeared in a wide range of plays, from Shakespeare (Romeo and Othello) to
Ibsen
(Oswald in
Ghosts
and the title role in
Brand
) and
Eugene O'Neill
(Orin in
Mourning Becomes Electra
), as well as lighter pieces.
[17]
Over the next fifty years the Gate Theatre company presented a programme of new or experimental plays by
Wilde
,
Shaw
,
Coward
and many others. Mac Liammoir and Edwards fostered the careers of new Irish dramatists such as
Denis Johnston
and rising young actors including
Orson Welles
.
[9]
[n 3]
Mac Liammoir returned to the
West End
in 1935, with the Gate company. The theatrical paper
The Era
rated his Hamlet one of the best in recent years: "charged with force, intelligence, humanity and dramatic certainty … a dominating and moving piece of acting",
[19]
and said that the Gate company "looks like putting the Abbey in the shade".
[20]
The cosmopolitan atmosphere of Mac Liammoir and Edwards' Gate Theatre was contrasted with the earnest Celticism of the Abbey, and the two Dublin theatres were affectionately dubbed "Sodom and Begorrah".
[9]
[21]
Wartime and later years
[
edit
]
Mac Liammoir remained based in Ireland during the
Second World War
. In the post-war years he returned to the West End in his own play
Ill Met by Moonlight
.
The Stage
thought the piece "too obscure and too discursive", but praised the performances of Mac Liammoir, Edwards and their supporting cast.
[22]
The following year the company played a short season on
Broadway
? Mac Liammoir's debut there ? giving his
Where Stars Walk
, Johnston's
The Old Lady Says No!
, and Shaw's
John Bull's Other Island
.
[17]
In 1951 he played Iago to Welles's Othello in the latter's
film adaptation
. In his early fifties he was unusually old for the role, but Welles wanted Iago played as an older, impotent man consumed by envy of the younger Othello.
[23]
Mac Liammoir returned to the role onstage at the
Dublin Festival
in 1962 opposite
William Marshall
in the title role.
[17]
[n 4]
In 1954 Mac Liammoir returned to London, playing Brack in
Hedda Gabler
with
Peggy Ashcroft
as Hedda.
[25]
In the role he was judged to be both sinister and amusing.
[26]
Most of his work continued to be at the Gate, but in 1959 he returned to New York to play Don Pedro in
Much Ado About Nothing
, with
John Gielgud
as Benedick and
Margaret Leighton
as Beatrice.
[27]
Mac Liammoir's biggest theatrical success came in 1960, with his one-man show
The Importance of Being Oscar
, which won enthusiastic reviews and did well at the box office. It opened at the Gate, after which he played it on Broadway, in London and on tour around the world. He appeared in the piece more than 1,300 times between 1960 and 1975.
[28]
He followed this in May 1963 with a new one-man entertainment
I Must Be Talking to My Friends
, and in 1970 presented a third,
Talking About Yeats
.
[17]
Also in 1963 he had a key role as the ironic, mocking, unseen narrator of the multi-Oscar-winning
Tom Jones
.
In his later years Mac Liammoir relaxed his insistence on his fictitious origins and admitted the truth to interviewers,
[29]
[30]
but for many years after his death reference books nonetheless continued to record him as a native of Cork.
[n 5]
Despite Ireland's anti-gay laws, not repealed in their lifetimes, Edwards' and Mac Liammoir's relationship gained wide acceptance.
[n 6]
The writer Eibhear Walshe has described them as Ireland's only publicly acknowledged homosexuals.
[32]
They were jointly created
freemen of the city of Dublin
in 1973, the first theatre people to be thus honoured.
[1]
Before that, MacLiammoir had received the Lady Gregory Medal for literature in 1960 and an honorary doctorate from
Trinity College
in 1963.
[1]
[5]
MacLiammoir made his final stage performance at the Gate in 1975 in
The Importance of Being Oscar
.
[28]
He died at his and Edwards's Dublin home, 4
Harcourt Terrace
, on 6 March 1978. Walshe records, "as a measure of the public acceptance of the MacLiammoir?Edwards partnership, the
president of Ireland
attended Micheal's funeral, two days later, at
St Fintan's, Howth
, Dublin, and paid his respects to Hilton Edwards as chief mourner".
[9]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Plays
[
edit
]
In his
Who's Who in the Theatre
entry, Mac Liammoir listed ten plays of which he was the author, as well as the three one-man shows, and an unspecified number of adaptations ("
Jane Eyre
,
The Picture of Dorian Grey
,
A Tale of Two Cities
, etc.")
[17]
- Ford of the Hurdles
1928
- Diarmuid agus Grainne
1929
- Where Stars Walk
1940
- Dancing Shadows
1941
- Ill Met by Moonlight
1946
|
- Portrait of Miriam
1947
- The Mountains Look Different
1948
- Home for Christmas
1950
- A Slipper for the Moon
1954
- Saint Patrick
1955
|
- One-man shows:
|
Books
[
edit
]
- Put Money In Thy Purse
- Each Actor On His Ass
- Ceo Meala La Seaca
- Enter a Goldfish
- All For Hecuba
|
- Oicheanna Sidhe
- La agus Oiche
- Aisteoiri Faoi Dha Sholas
- Theatre in Ireland
- Ireland
|
- Blath agus Taibhse
- An Oscar of No Importance
- W.B.Yeats and his world
, with Eavan Boland
|
Films
[
edit
]
The
British Film Institute
lists eleven films in which Mac Liammoir took part.
[33]
Biographies and commemorations
[
edit
]
Books about Mac Liammoir include
Micheal Mac Liammoir: Designs & Illustrations 1917?1972
, by Richard Pine and Orla Murphy (1973);
[34]
Enter Certain Players: Edwards?MacLiammoir and the Gate 1928?1978
, edited by Peter Luke (1978);
[35]
a biography,
The Importance of Being Micheal
by Micheal O hAodha (1990)
[36]
and
The Boys: A Double Biography
, by Christopher Fitz-Simon (1996).
[37]
In 1985, Orson Welles was the narrator for
Two People... With One Pulse
, a documentary film about Mac Liammoir and Edwards.
[38]
To mark Mac Liammoir's centenary in 1999 the
BBC
commissioned a documentary,
Dear Boy: The Story of Micheal Mac Liammoir
, which included rare archive footage.
[39]
Mac Liammoir is the subject of the 1990 play
The Importance of Being Micheal
by John Keyes;
[40]
Frank McGuinness
's play 2008
Gates of Gold
is inspired by Edwards and Mac Liammoir;
[41]
and Mac Liammoir is the subject of
Antoine O Flatharta
's 2023 play
Waltsail Abhaile
.
[42]
The annual
Dublin Gay Theatre Festival
presents the "Micheal Mac Liammoir Award for Outstanding performance by a male".
[43]
Notes, references and sources
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
In Mac Liammoir's fabricated version of his origins his father was "Alfred Anthony MacLiammoir".
[2]
- ^
Under the title "The Irish Players", a company from the Abbey played at the
Little Theatre
in 1915, giving plays by Synge and Lady Gregory, and gave
Duty
, a comedy about law-breaking by Irish policemen, in the
music-hall
bill at the
London Coliseum
.
[6]
- ^
Welles was with the Gate company from October 1931 to February 1932, appearing in supporting roles in six productions.
[18]
- ^
Marshall was a last-minute replacement for Anew McMaster, who died shortly before the production.
[24]
- ^
See, for instance,
The Macmillan Dictionary of Irish Literature
(2016), p. 411.
- ^
Mac Liammoir was once arrested on an indecency charge, but was acquitted when his landlady attested the purity of his morals: "He's never
once
tried to take a young lady up to his room".
[31]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
Fitz-Simon, Christopher.
" MacLiammoir, Micheal"
.
Dictionary of Irish Biography
, Royal Irish Academy. Retrieved 10 April 2021
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Parker, p. 1039
- ^
"The Little Theatre",
The Times
, 28 January 1911, p. 12
- ^
a
b
"Micheal Mac Liammoir Talking About Friends Who Influenced His Life and Work",
The Stage
, 21 January 1965, p. 19
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Mac Liammoir, Micheal (1899?1978)"
, AINM (in Irish). Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^
"The Irish Players",
The Times
, 11 May 1915, p. 11; and "An Irish Police Comedy",
The Times
, 29 June 1915, p, 6
- ^
"Felix Gets a Month",
The Times
, 7 February 1917, p. 11
- ^
"A New Irish Film",
Irish Independent
, 5 October 1925, p. 8
- ^
a
b
c
d
Walshe, Eibhear.
"MacLiammoir, Micheal (formerly Alfred Lee Willmore) (1899?1978), actor and playwright"
,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, Oxford University Press, 2006. Retrieved 11 April
(subscription or
UK public library membership
required)
- ^
"State Subsidy for Gaelic Theatre",
Londonderry Sentinel
, 30 August 1928, p. 7
- ^
"Bannard Cogley, D(esiree)"
.
Abbey Theatre Archive
. Retrieved
19 January
2022
.
- ^
Reynolds, Paige (2020). "Theatrical Ireland: New Routes from the Abbey Theatre to the Gate Theatre". In Howes, Marjorie Elizabeth (ed.).
Irish Literature in Transition, 1880?1940
. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
978-1108570794
.
- ^
Corporaal, Marguerite; van den Beuken, Ruud (2021). "Introduction". In Corporaal, Marguerite; van den Beuken, Ruud (eds.).
A stage of emancipation: change and progress at the Dublin Gate Theatre
. Liverpool: Oxford University Press. p. 1.
ISBN
9781800859517
.
- ^
Sisson, Elaine (2018). "Experiment and the Free State: Mrs Cogley's Cabaret and the Founding of the Gate Theatre". In David Clare; Des Lally; Patrick Lonergan (eds.).
The Gate Theatre, Dublin: inspiration and craft
. Oxford: Peter Lang. pp. 11?27.
ISBN
978-1-78874-624-3
.
OCLC
1050455337
.
- ^
Finegan, John (12 August 1989). "Toto deserves remembrance (astonishing woman of Dublin theatre)".
The Evening Herald
. Dublin, Ireland. p. 14.
- ^
"To Lead World in Drama Ambition of the Irish",
Boston Globe
, 21 January 1929, p. 22
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Herbert, pp. 1131?1132
- ^
Taylor, p. 12
- ^
"Irish Hamlet at the Westminster",
The Era
, 19 June 1935, p. 14
- ^
Marriott, R. B. "A Great Man of the Theatre",
The Era
, 19 June 1935, p. 3
- ^
Van?k, p. 31
- ^
"The Vaudeville",
The Stage
, 13 February 1947, p. 1
- ^
Mac Liammoir, p. 26
- ^
"On the Aisle",
Chicago Tribune
, 9 October 1962, p. 33
- ^
"Hedda Gabler",
The Sketch
, 6 October 1954, pp. 304?305
- ^
Hope-Wallace, Philip. "Hedda Gabler",
The Manchester Guardian
, 10 September 1954, p. 5; and "Lyric Theatre Hammersmith",
The Times
, 9 September 1954, p. 11
- ^
"Much Ado About Nothing"
, Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 11 April 2021
- ^
a
b
Wallace, p. 178
- ^
Castle, p. 22
- ^
Morley, p. 128
- ^
Morley, pp. 129?130
- ^
Walshe, Eibhear.
"Sexing the Shamrock"
,
Critical Survey
, Vol. 8, No. 2, "Anglo-Irish studies: new developments" (1996), pp. 159?167
(subscription required)
- ^
"Michal MacLiammoir"
, British Film Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
WorldCat
OCLC
877770460
- ^
WorldCat
OCLC
4686316
- ^
"The Importance of Being Micheal: A Portrait of MacLiammoir"
, WorldCat. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
WorldCat
OCLC
35661759
- ^
"Two People... With One Pulse"
, British Film Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
"Dear Boy ? The Story of Micheal MacLiammoir"
, British Film Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2021; and
"Dear Boy ? The Story of Micheal MacLiammoir"
, Irish Film Board. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
"The Importance of Being Michael" (
sic
)
, Lagan Press. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
Billington, Michael.
"Sodom and begorrah"
,
The Guardian
, 4 May 2002. Retrieved 12 April 2021
- ^
"Waltsail Abhaile"
.
- ^
"2019 Gala Awards Winners Announced"
, Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, 21 May 2019. Retrieved 12 April 2021
Sources
[
edit
]
- Castle, Charles
(1972).
Noel
. London: W H Allen.
ISBN
978-1-34-907795-3
.
- Herbert, Ian, ed. (1977).
Who's Who in the Theatre
(sixteenth ed.). London and Detroit: Pitman Publishing and Gale Research.
ISBN
978-0-273-00163-8
.
- Hogan, Robert (2016).
The Macmillan Dictionary of Irish Literature
. London: Macmillan.
ISBN
978-0-491-00534-0
.
- Mac Liammoir, Micheal (1952).
Put Money in Thy Purse: The Diary of the Film "Othello"
. London: Methuen.
OCLC
786105342
.
- Morley, Sheridan
(2006).
Theatre's Strangest Acts: Extraordinary But True Tales from the History of Theatre
. London: Robson.
ISBN
978-1-86-105674-0
.
- Parker, John, ed. (1939).
Who's Who in the Theatre
(ninth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons.
OCLC
1036973910
.
- Taylor, John Russell
(1998).
Orson Welles: A Celebration
. London: Pavilion.
ISBN
978-1-86-205127-0
.
- Van?k, Joe
(2005).
Scene Change: One Hundred Years of Theatre Design at the Abbey Theatre
. Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art.
ISBN
978-1-90-381139-9
.
- Wallace, Martin (1983).
100 Irish Lives
. Newton Abbot: David & Charles.
ISBN
978-0-38-920364-3
.
Academic articles on Mac Liammoir available in open access regime
- Markus, Radvan.
"Micheal mac Liammoir, the Irish Language, and the Idea of Freedom."
Marguerite Corporaal and Ruud van den Beuken, eds.
A Stage of Emancipation: Change and Progress at the Dublin Gate Theatre.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021, 113-131.
- Dean, Joan Fitzpatrick, and Radvan Markus.
"The Internationalist Dramaturgy of Hilton Edwards and Micheal mac Liammoir."
Ond?ej Pilny, Ruud van den Beuken, Ian R. Walsh, eds.
Cultural Convergences: The Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928?1960
. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, 15-46.
External links
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]
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