Noel Purcell: A Biography

Dublin has a history of providing Hollywood many fine performers, among them Barry Fitzgerald, his brother Arthur Shields, and Jack McGowran. Also in this group can be counted Noel Purcell (1900-1985), a character actor who, unlike many of his Irish contemporaries, came out of variety theater and not the legitimate stage. He worked in comedy and pantomime, and because of his 64 height often played women roles for comic effect. While working full-time in the theater, other aspects of Purcell's career and life progressed more slowly: he did not make his first movie until 1934, did not drink until he was 35, did not marry until he was 40 (although he had known his wife Eileen since she was 12), and he did not appear in an O'Casey play, his first role in legitimate theater, until 1941. After WW II his film career really took off. He played a Belfast tram conductor in Carol Reed's classic Odd Man Out ; worked with Jean Simmons in The Blue Lagoon , Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life , James Cagney in Shake Hands with the Devil , and he appeared in John Huston's Moby Dick and John Ford's The Rising of the Moon . His career was capped in 1984 when Dublin conferred the civic honor of Freedom of the City on him. Bryan has written not just an interesting biography, but also a history of an important period in Irish theater and Hollywood film. Photos. (Oct.)