Vincent Dowling
{{Short description|Irish actor and director (1929–2013)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2022}}
{{Other people}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Vincent Dowling
| image =
| caption =
| birthname = Vincent Gerard Dowling
| birth_date = 7 September 1929
| birth_place = Dublin, Ireland
| death_date = {{death date and age|2013|05|9|1929|09|07|df=y}}
| death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
| occupation = Actor, director
| years_active = 1950–2013
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Brenda Doyle|1952|1975|end=divorced}}
- {{marriage|Olwen O'Herlihy|1975|2013|end=died}}
}}
| children = 6, including Bairbre Dowling and Richard Boyd Barrett
| awards = Emmy Award (1983)
}}
Vincent Gerard Dowling ({{IPA| /ˈvɪnsənt/}}; {{langx|ga|Uinseann Gearóid Ó Dúnlaing}}; 7 September 1929 – 9 May 2013){{cite news | url=http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/05/vincent_dowling_irish_director.html | title=Vincent Dowling, Irish director and actor who led Great Lakes Theater Festival, dies at 83 | work=The Plain Dealer | date=11 May 2013 | access-date=2013-05-12}} was an Irish actor and director. Throughout his career, he served as Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Ireland, the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, and Chester Theatre Company.
In 1981 he received a Emmy Award for his television film adaptation of J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World on PBS, starring his daughter Bairbre Dowling. As an actor and director, Dowling worked on over 100 productions with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He received four honorary Doctorate of Letters from John Carroll University, Kent State University, Westfield State University, and the College of Wooster, for contributions to Irish and American drama. Dowling was an early career mentor to Academy Award winning actor, Tom Hanks.
Ireland
Dowling was born in Dublin and educated at St Mary's College, Dublin and Rathmines College of Commerce. He came to prominence in the 1950s for his role as Christy Kennedy in the long-running radio soap opera, The Kennedys of Castleross and as a member of the Abbey Theatre company. He returned to the Abbey as artistic director from 1987 to 1990.{{fact|date=April 2022}}
United States
Dowling emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, and served as artistic director of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (GLSF) in Cleveland, Ohio from 1976 to 1984,[http://vincentdowling.com/bio.html Vincent Dowling, Curriculum Vitae: Summary] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080827162509/http://vincentdowling.com/bio.html |date=2008-08-27 }} where he directed, produced and acted in many classical works, by Shakespeare and others. He is credited with discovering actor Tom Hanks. {{cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/2023/06/16/tom-hanks-entertains-dalkey-with-accents-anecdotes-and-the-irish-director-who-gave-him-a-chance/|title=Tom Hanks entertains Dalkey with accents, anecdotes and the Irish director who gave him a chance |quote=Vincent Dowling of the Abbey Theatre was doing the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival...I’m here today because of Vincent Dowling.|publisher=The Irish Times|access-date=16 June 2023}} Dowling received an Ohio Valley local Emmy for the 1983 PBS broadcast of his 1982 GLSF production of The Playboy of the Western World.{{cite web|url=http://www.greatlakestheater.org/about/50-stars|title=About - 50 Stars |quote=In 1982, Dowling's The Playboy of the Western World was taped by PBS and won a local Emmy Award.|publisher=Great Lakes Theater|access-date=20 April 2018}}
He was visiting professor at The College of Wooster in Ohio during the 1986-87 academic year. He founded the Miniature Theatre of Chester (now the Chester Theatre Company), in Chester, Massachusetts, in 1990.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/16/vincent-dowling-irish-actor-director-cofounded-chester-theatre-company/2uHMrE6KwmwxYcvcbvEsKO/story.html|title=Vincent Dowling, 83; Irish actor, director cofounded Chester Theatre Company - The Boston Globe|work=BostonGlobe.com|access-date=2017-05-30}}
Personal life
Dowling married actress Brenda Doyle in 1952; they had four daughters, including actress Bairbre Dowling, before divorcing in 1975.{{cite web|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3481000097.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610074207/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3481000097.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=10 June 2014|title=Dowling, Vincent 1929–|work=Contemporary Authors|publisher=HighBeam Research|access-date=20 April 2018}} In 1975, Dowling married Olwen O'Herlihy, with whom he had a son.
Politician Richard Boyd Barrett is the biological son of Dowling and recording artist and actress Sinéad Cusack from a 1966 relationship while both were at the Abbey Theatre; Boyd Barrett was adopted as an infant. Dowling contacted Boyd Barrett after his connection with Cusack was publicly revealed in 2007. Their relationship was made known after his death in 2013.{{cite news|last=Lynch|first=Donal|date=12 May 2013|title=Dowling was my father, his death saddens me|work=Irish Independent|url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dowling-was-my-father-his-death-saddens-me-29259889.html|access-date=20 April 2018}}
Dowling published an autobiography in 2000.{{cite book|title=Astride the Moon: A Theatrical Life|year=2001|publisher=Wolfhound Press|isbn=0-86327-828-0|first=Vincent |last=Dowling}} His papers, from 1976 onward, are housed at the Kent State University{{Cite web |url=http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/theater/dowling.html |title=Vincent Dowling papers |work=Library; Special Collections and Archives |publisher=Kent State University}} and John Carroll University libraries.{{fact|date=April 2022}}
Selected filmography
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0235884}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowling, Vincent}}
Category:Irish male film actors
Category:Irish male stage actors
Category:Irish emigrants to the United States
Category:Irish male radio actors