Aideen O'Kelly

Aideen O'Kelly was from Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin. Her father was Dermod O'Kelly, an accountant. Her mother, Florence Ledwidge, worked for the Dublin Gas Company. Her sister Emer O'Kelly became a theatre critic.{{Cite news|title=Gifted actor with string of successes in Ireland and on Broadway|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/gifted-actor-with-string-of-successes-in-ireland-and-on-broadway-1.2205697|date=May 9, 2015|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}}

O'Kelly was sent by director Ernest Blyth to the Aran Islands as a teenaged actress, to improve her spoken Irish for performing at the Abbey Theatre. She went on to star in productions at the Abbey, including The Plough and the Stars (1966), The Playboy of the Western World (1968). In 1984 she played the Mother Superior in a Dublin production of Agnes of God. She was also in a production of The Plough and the Stars in London in the 1990s, directed by her Abbey colleague Joe Dowling. She wrote about meeting with Samuel Beckett in a 1990 article for Backstage.{{Cite journal|last=O'Kelly|first=Aideen|date=December 21, 1990|title=Meeting and Working with Beckett|journal=Back Stage|volume=31|page=26}}

O'Kelly appeared on Broadway in A Life (1980-1981),{{Cite news|last=O'Haire|first=Patricia|date=1980-11-05|title=Aideen O'Kelly Keeps in Character|pages=49|work=Daily News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50355876/aideen-okelly-keeps-in/|access-date=2020-05-06|via=Newspapers.com}} as Emilia in Othello (1982, with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer), in Philadelphia Here I Come! (1994, with Milo O'Shea),{{Cite web|title=Aideen O'Kelly|url=http://www.playbill.com/person/aideen-okelly-vault-0000032625|website=Playbill|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}} and in The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1998-1999).{{Cite news|last=Sholiton|first=Faye|date=May 21, 1999|title=GLTF's 'Beauty Queen': An Irish stew of comedy, mystery and tragedy|page=34|work=Cleveland Jewish News}} She won a 1982 Drama Desk Award for her Emilia in Othello. She also appeared in numerous Irish Repertory Theatre productions in New York. She appeared off-Broadway on several occasions, including in Frank McGuinness's Baglady, Samuel Beckett's Happy Days (1987),{{Cite news|last=Nemy|first=Enid|date=October 2, 1987|title=Up to Her Neck in Work|page=C2|work=The New York Times}} Stephen Jeffreys' The Libertine (1998),{{Cite news|last=Bruckner|first=D. J. R.|date=January 16, 1998|title=A Restoration Romp Fllled with Self-Indulgent Delight|page=E22|work=The New York Times}} and Joseph O'Connor's Red Roses and Petrol (2000).{{Cite news|last=Mac Reamoinn|first=Laoise|date=October 31, 2000|title=A Petrol-Fueled Evening|page=22|work=Irish Voice}}

Mel Gussow, The New York Times critic, said of O'Kelly in Happy Days that: "Aideen O'Kelly conforms more than many of her predecessors to the physical outline suggested by the author: blond, plump and bosomy. At the outset, the actress has an amiable, almost chipper quality as she goes through Winnie's ritual ablutions and her marital memories."{{Cite news|last=Gussow|first=Mel|date=September 4, 1987|title=Stage: Beckett's 'Happy Days'|page=C3|work=The New York Times}} Broadway caricaturist Al Hirschfeld drew O'Kelly three times, in her roles in A Life, Othello and Happy Days.{{Cite web|title=Aideen O'Kelly|url=http://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/type/aideen-okelly|website=Al Hirschfeld Foundation|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}}

In Ireland, O'Kelly won a Jacob's Award for best actress in 1970, for a television role. She appeared on American television in episodes of Third Watch and Law & Order, both filmed in New York City, and the soap opera Another World. She also had roles in the televised versions of the plays A Life (1984) and Playboy of the Western World (1983). Film roles for O'Kelly included parts in Boyd's Shop (1960), Family Business (1989), and A Perfect Murder (1998).

O'Kelly appears as herself in Still Dreaming (2014), a documentary about the Lillian Booth Actors Home.{{Cite web|title=Still Dreaming|url=https://www.docnyc.net/film/still-dreaming/|website=docnyc.net|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-06}}

Aideen O'Kelly married Eoin Troy; they later divorced. She had four children, Judith, Orla, Kevin and David. She moved to the United States in 1979,{{Cite book|last=Ben-Zvi|first=Linda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7V0wgLGE0oC&q=Aideen+O%27Kelly&pg=PA35|title=Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives|date=1992|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-06256-8|pages=35–|language=en}} and there converted to Judaism. She died in 2015, aged 78 years, at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey.

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0641519}}
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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20191221132504/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba57059a0 Aideen O'Kelly] at the British Film Institute{{better source needed|reason=Help request: a live link can be searched for at https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/search/expert - if available, replace the archive URL with the live link. Or if none found, remove this 'better source needed' template. | date=October 2023}}
• [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b4238231-40ce-56ba-e040-e00a18066127 "Aideen O'Kelly as Emilia in a scene from the Broadway revival of the play Othello"], (1981) by Martha Swope, in the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections.
• [https://irishphotoarchive.photoshelter.com/image/I0000_9g7k2.PGdc A 1956 photograph of Aideen O'Kelly], from the Irish Photo Archive.

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Category:1936 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Irish stage actresses

Category:Irish television actresses

Category:People from Dalkey

Category:People from County Dublin

Category:Irish emigrants to the United States