Dermot Crowley (born March 19, 1947 in Cork, Ireland) is a Irish stage, film and television actor.

Career[link]

Crowley's stage work has included a leading role in an Olivier Award winning production of Conor McPherson's The Weir, which played in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States in the late 1990s.^[1] His first television role was playing George Bernard Shaw in the UK TV series Victorian Scandals in 1976.

He played General Crix Madine in Return of the Jedi.^[2] He played Sergent François Duval in Son of the Pink Panther. Dermot went on to appear in Call Red, Father Liam Deliverance in Father Ted, An Independent Man, Dangerfield, Jonathan Creek, A Touch of Frost, Holby City,The Bill and Luther, among many others. He also appeared in the first episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot in 1989.

He auditioned for the role of the Seventh Doctor for the show Doctor Who but the role was given to Sylvester McCoy.^[3]

In 2011, he appeared in The Cripple of Inishmaan with the Druid Theater Company at the Kirk Douglas Theater. He won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Featured Performance.

Dermot frequently appears on BBC radio, in drama such as Mind's Eye.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dermot Crowley at the Internet Movie Database

Paul Durcan (b. 16 October 1944 in Dublin) is a contemporary Irish poet.

Early life[link]

Durcan grew up in Dublin and in Turlough, County Mayo. His father, John, was a barrister and circuit court judge; father and son had a difficult and formal relationship. Durcan enjoyed a warmer and more natural relationship with his mother, Sheila MacBride Durcan. He studied law and economics at University College Dublin. While at college, Durcan was kidnapped by his family and committed against his will to Saint John of God psychiatric hospital in Dublin, and later to a Harley Street clinic where he was subjected to electric shock treatment and heavy dosages of barbiturates and Mandrax.

Durcan moved to live in London in 1966 where he worked at the North Thames Gas Board. He met Nessa O'Neill in 1968; they married and had two daughters, Sarah and Siabhra. They lived in South Kensington, then moved to Cork where his wife taught in a prison. The marriage ended at the beginning of 1984.^[1][2][3][4]

Career[link]

Durcan's main published collections include: A Snail in my Prime, Crazy About Women, Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil and Cries of an Irish Caveman. He appeared on the 1990 Van Morrison album Enlightenment, giving an idiosyncratic vocal performance on the song, "In The Days Before Rock'n'Roll", which he also co-wrote.

In 2003, he published a collection of his weekly addresses to the nation, Paul Durcan's Diary, on RTÉ Radio 1 programme Today with Pat Kenny. He was shortlisted in 2005 for the Poetry Now Award for his collection, The Art of Life. In 2009, he was conferred with an honorary degree by Trinity College, Dublin.^[5]

Durcan is a member of Aosdána.

Awards[link]

• 1974 - Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award
• 1989 - Irish American Cultural Institute Poetry Award
• 1990 - The Whitebread Prize (Daddy, Daddy)
• London Poetry Book Society choice for The Berlin Wall Café

Poetry books[link]

• Endsville, with Brian Lynch (New Writers' Press, 1967)
• O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor (Anna Livia Press, 1975)
• Sam's Cross (Profile Press, 1978)
• Teresa's Bar (The Gallery Press, 1976; revised edition, The Gallery Press, 1986)
• Jesus, Break his Fall (The Raven Arts Press, 1980)
• Ark of the North (Raven Arts Press, 1982)
• The Selected Paul Durcan (edited by Edna Longley, The Blackstaff Press, 1982)
• Jumping the Train Tracks with Angela (Raven Arts Press/Carcanet New Press, 1983)
• The Berlin Wall Café (The Blackstaff Press, 1985)
• Going Home to Russia (The Blackstaff Press, 1987)
• Daddy, Daddy (The Blackstaff Press, 1990)
• Crazy About Women (The National Gallery of Ireland, 1991)
• A Snail in My Prime. New and Selected Poems, (The Harvill Press /The Blackstaff Press, 1993)
• Give Me Your Hand (MacMillan, 1994)
• Christmas Day (The Harvill Press, 1997)
• Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil(The Harvill Press, 1999)
• Cries of an Irish Caveman (The Harvill Press, 2001)
• The Art of Life (The Harvill Press, 2004)
• The Laughter of Mothers (The Harvill Press, 2007)
• Life Is a Dream: 40 Years Reading Poems 1967-2007 (Random House UK 2009)

References[link]

The Kilfenora Teaboy, (ed. Colm Tóibín, New Island Books, 1997;) ISBN 1-874597-31-6

External links[link]

• Paul Durcan at Contemporary Writers
• Guardian review of The Laughter of Mothers by Caitriona O'Reilly

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2010)

Dearbhla Molloy (born Dublin, 1946) is an Irish actress of the stage and screen from Dublin.

Molloy consolidated her stage reputation at both the Abbey and the Gate theatres, coming to England to tour with an Abbey production. She was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company and has played Gertrude to Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in the West End. In 1991 she was in the company that performed Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, about the sad lives of a group of sisters in pre-war rural Ireland, on Broadway, and was nominated for a Tony award,^[1] though her role went to the non-Irish Kathy Burke in the cinema version. She has appeared in television plays and series, notably as Michael Palin's wife in the GBH and also in New Tricks - as a murderer - and Midsomer Murders - as a murder victim, Sex and the City, and Coronation Street.

Among her theatrical credits are: Doubt: A Parable (Tricycle Theatre); In Celebration (Duke of York's Theatre); Dancing at Lughnasa, Juno and the Paycock, A Touch of the Poet (on Broadway); Juno and the Paycock (Donmar Warehouse); The Cripple of Inishmaan, On the Ledge, Hinterland (National Theatre); Arcadia (Haymarket); The Life of the World to Come (Almeida); The Hostage (Royal Shakespeare Company); and The Plough and the Stars (Young Vic).

Molloy has appeared extensively in the plays of Irish playwright Brian Friel.

On television, she has appeared in Waking the Dead, Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks, and the 1960s RTE soap opera Tolka Row. Her film credits include Tara Road, The Blackwater Lightship and This Is the Sea.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dearbhla Molloy at the Internet Movie Database

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Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
Born	Geoffrey Roy Rush (1951-07-06) 6 July 1951 (age 60) Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Residence	Camberwell, Victoria
Nationality	Australian
Education	Everton Park State High School
Alma mater	University of Queensland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1971–present
Home town	Brisbane
Spouse	Jane Menelaus (m. 1988) «start: (1988)»"Marriage: Jane Menelaus to Geoffrey Rush" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Geoffrey_Rush)

Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. He is the 2012 Australian of the Year.^[1][2]

Early life[link]

Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to Merle (née Kiehne), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force.^[3][4] His parents divorced when he was five and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in suburban Brisbane.^[5] Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He also has an arts degree from the University of Queensland.^[6] While at university, he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) in Brisbane. Rush began his career with QTC in 1971, appearing in 17 productions.

In 1975, Rush went to Paris for two years and studied mime, movement and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, before returning to resume his stage career with QTC.^[4] In 1979, he shared an apartment with actor Mel Gibson for four months while they co-starred in a stage production of Waiting for Godot.^[4][5][6]

Stage career[link]

Rush made his theatre debut in the QTC's production of Wrong Side of the Moon. He worked with the QTC for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays & pantomime, from Juno and the Paycock to Hamlet on Ice. Following these, Rush left for Paris where he studied further.

Rush's acting credits include Shakespeare's plays, The Winter's Tale (with the State Theatre Company of South Australia in 1987 at The Playhouse in Adelaide), and Troilus and Cressida (at the Old Museum Building in 1989). He also appeared in an on-going production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest as John Worthing (Ernest) (in which his wife, Jane Menelaus, appeared as Gwendolen).

In September 1998, Rush played the title role in the Beaumarchais play The Marriage of Figaro for the QTC. This was the opening production of the Optus Playhouse, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank in Brisbane. A pun on Geoffrey Rush's name (and the circumstances), was used in the opening prologue of the play with the comment that the "Optus Playhouse was opening with a Rush".

Rush has appeared on stage for the Brisbane Arts Theatre and in many other theatre venues. He has also worked as a theatre director.

In 2007, he starred as King Berenger in a production of Eugène Ionesco's Exit the King at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Company B in Sydney, directed by Neil Armfield. For this performance, he received a Helpmann Award nomination for best male actor in a play.

Rush made his Broadway debut in a restaging of Exit the King under Malthouse Theatre's touring moniker Malthouse Melbourne. This restaging featured a new American cast including Susan Sarandon. The show opened on 26 March 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Rush won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League Award and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

In 2011, Rush played the lead in a theatrical adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short atory The Diary of a Madman at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rush won for this role Helpmann Award and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award.^[7]

From November 2011, Rush played the role of Lady Bracknell in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest.^[8] Other actors from the 1988 production include Jane Menelaus, this time as Miss Prism, and Bob Hornery, who had played Canon Chasuble, as the two butlers.^[9]

Film career[link]

Rush at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.

Rush made his film debut in the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981. His next film was Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, the following year. In the coming years he appeared in small roles on television dramas, including a role as a dentist in a 1993 episode of the British television series Lovejoy. He made his breakthrough performance in 1996 with Shine, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Australian-born actor to win an Oscar.

In 1998, he appeared in three major films: Les Misérables, Elizabeth, and Shakespeare in Love.

In 1999, Rush took the lead role as Steven Price in the horror film House on Haunted Hill. In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for Quills, in which he played the Marquis de Sade.

Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 to 2003. He starred in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as Captain Hector Barbossa, also appearing in its sequels, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger Tides.

Rush reprised his character's voice for the enhancements at the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom theme parks, which involved an Audio-Animatronic with Rush's likeness being installed (including one at Tokyo Disneyland). He also voiced Nigel the pelican in Finding Nemo.

Rush at the Sydney premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in May 2011

Rush played actor Peter Sellers in the television film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. For this performance, he won an Emmy Award^[10] for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Movie, a SAG Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture made for Television. In 2005, he starred in Steven Spielberg's Munich as Ephraim, a Mossad agent.

In 2006, Rush hosted the Australian Film Institute Awards for the Nine Network. He was the Master of Ceremonies again at the 2007 AFI Awards.

In 2010, Rush played speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, a part that earned him a BAFTA and nominations for the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actor.

Rush returned as Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, starring Johnny Depp. Rush is also preparing for a film version of The Drowsy Chaperone, an award-winning stage musical.^[11] In addition, he voiced the alien Tomar-Re in the film adaptation of the Green Lantern comic book series.^[12]

In the beginning of 2009, Rush appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps featuring some of Australia's internationally recognised actors. He, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series. Rush's image is taken from Shine.^[13]

In 2011, Rush made a cameo in a commercial, The Potato Peeler, for the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), playing a Polish peasant. He spoke his lines in Polish for the part.^[14]

In August 2011 he was appointed the foundation President of the newly formed Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.^[15]

Personal life[link]

Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992), and a son, James (born 1995). Geoffrey Rush lives in the eastern suburbs of Victoria, Australia.^[3]

Filmography[link]