The Allure of the Big Screen

Paul Harron discovers a recent book on Hollywood’s Irish connections published by Appletree Press.

LALA-Land’, ‘Tinseltown’, ‘Dream Factory of the World’ – just some of the names ranging from the derogatory to the infatuated coined for that famous stretch of land in the hills above Los Angeles synonymous with celebrity, hedonism and, of course, film-making. The big white cut-out letters which spell out Hollywood have become iconic, but in fact they originally spelt out the longer ‘Hollywoodland’ and were put there as a marketing ploy by an Irish American, John Roche, only later to be shortened to ‘Hollywood’, advertising not just a place but an industry and even a lifestyle.

Holywood’s associations with Irish men and women stretch back further and go deeper than that. In fact, the development of the place – and much of LA and its waterways – owes much to a pioneering Irish immigrant, William Mulholland, an engineer who is immortalised in the famous Mulholland Drive.

THE MOVIE MAKERS

As the authors of Emeralds in Tinseltown say, Mulholland prepared the way in the West for a new type of American adventurer who would follow railroads from the East: the movie makers. Many of these film folk were Irish and among them was a young man from County Meath called Owen Moore, Ireland’s first movie star and director. He starred alongside Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, for example, and went on to marry the actress Mary Pickford from whom he was later divorced – she went on to marry Douglas Fairbanks thereby becoming one half of ‘the king and queen of Hollywood’ partnership in the 1920s.

The Irish stars of Hollywood are described in fascinating detail by the authors, Steve Brennan – international editor of the entertainment daily The Hollywood Reporter – and Bernadette O’Neill – an Irish stage and screen actress, film historian and founder member of the IFTA. They take a roughly chronological approach, breaking the book up in chapters which are either thematically- or personality-based. Rex Ingram – originally Reginald Ingram Montgomery, the Dublin-born son of a clergyman – was one of the first to head across the Atlantic in the early twentieth century and take up directing, his first big box office hit for Universal being Black Orchids set in pre-Revolutionary France. He later went on to team up with Waterford-born Pat Powers, one of the founders of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company (later Universal Studios) and directed the renowned The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse starring Rudolph Valentino.

Other early Irish names were Cedric Gibbons, the Oscar-winning art director behind the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz, and other films such as Little Women, An American in Paris and Somebody Up There Likes Me. People ‘down here’ liked him too – as well as the Oscars he was awarded the award for distinguished achievement for art direction in 1950 by the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors.

Swashbucklers and stars of particular interest to Northern Irish film buffs, perhaps, is one of Hollywood’s most colourful Irishmen, Errol Flynn. Although actually born in Tasmania he like to be referred to as Irish when he was at the peak as the movies’ most infamous swashbuckler. His father Theodore Thompson Flynn was a popular professor of Zoology at Queen’s University, Belfast. Flynn, whose autobiography was entitled My Wicked, Wicked Ways (which just about says it all) shot to fame in Captian Blood in 1935 and went on to play action-hero roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Dawn Patrol, Gentleman Jim and Against All Flags, which co-starred Maureen O’Hara and Anthony Quinn. Flynn finds himself in two chapters – one covering the Irish cowboys, another honing in on ‘Holywood’s glorified missus’, Greer Garson. Born in County Down, Garson was a reluctant émigré but was eventually attracted by the thought of the Californian sunshine adding ten years to her life (as Louis B. Meyer promised it would) and went on to become one of Holywood’s most enduring and respected stars (think, for example, Goodbye Mister Chips). She felt she was typecast as prim and proper and is pictured in the book battling the prim role in the embrace of Errol Flynn in the film That Forsythe Woman.

There are inevitably detailed and lively chapters on characters such as Gene Kelly, Maureen O’Sullivan and – ‘Holywood Screen Royalty’ – Maureen O’Hara and Grace Kelly. O’Hara – born Maureen FitzSimmons in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1920 – went on to become particularly identified with the cult classic The Quiet Man, while Grace Kelly, the epitome of beauty on screen and star of film classics such as High Society and Hitchcock’s Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and Dial M for Murder, was the daughter of an Irish-American millionaire and of course went on to become real royalty through marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Her elegant features grace the cover of the book.

NEW GENERATIONS

Richard Harris’ life is covered well, from his early career and films such as This Sporting Life through to the acclaimed Jim Sherridan film The Field in which he played Bull McCabe. Harris had a reputation as a rebel, but thought that his epigraph should really read ‘he was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad’. His life story heralds the final chapters of the book marking the new generation of Irish-linked Holywood stars. These hot commodities include Colin Farrell, Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Roma Downey and directors Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan.

Emeralds in Tinseltown is an enjoyable book – one which can be easily dipped in and out of. There’s plenty of eye candy in the wealth of good archival photographs and film stills, and it’s attractively designed with nice little touches like the distinctive running images for each chapter. Anyone with an interest in films and Holywood and its Irish connections in particular will enjoy it. It’s not a definitive reference book (and it’s a slight shame that there’s no index) but it is packed with facts and interesting tit-bits that will please the film buff and those attracted to the glamour and allure of the big screen and its big stars down the years.

Emeralds in Tinseltown – the Irish in Holywood by Stephen Brennan and Bernadette O’Neill is published in hardback by Appletree Press (ISBN 978-1-84758-048-1) and widely available from local bookshops. For further information visit www.appletree.ie

Andrea Mc Veigh

I have, on my fireplace, two beautiful 'thank you' cards. One of them was sent to me by the sister of a friend, both of whom I'd invited to a party (more about the party later). It was the first time I'd met Fionnula and it was a lovely gesture for her to send me a card. So much so, in fact, that I was tempted to send a thank-you-for-the-thank-you card! It's a trend I've noticed, in this era of texts and emails - the return of the greetings card. It's a delight to get them through the letterbox, when you’re more used to bills, junk mail and flyers. Last month I received even more, including some unexpected 'thinking of you' cards from friends. I send them myself, my favourite being a 'George Clooney' card for my GC-obsessed friend Jacquie with the scribbled note, "I saw this and thought of you". And a few years back I was thrilled when my friend Sonja sent out 'thank you' cards for her birthday presents. The post-birthday thank you note is something I hadn’t thought about since childhood, but it's a tradition I now aim to keep up.
It's good to know that in these busy times, people still take the time to seek out pretty cards, write a note, find a stamp and post it. It takes such a small amount of effort yet means so much. You should do it yourself. Next time you see a nice card that makes you smile, buy it and send it to someone you love - it'll make their day.
But back to that party. It was an Uber Pamper Party, and I'd not heard of them either until my friend Marcus Hunter Neill told me he'd bought the Uber rights for Belfast and Co. Down. You may remember Marcus form his star-turn on Deal or No Deal when he totally stole the show from Noel Edmonds! He's since turned up on UTV and, as well as his media career, he also works in property development and management - he's a busy man! Pamper Parties are like Tupperware parties but with skincare, beauty, hair and tanning products instead of sandwich boxes. You get a group of female friends round and an Uber rep will come and give you all mini-facials and you can buy the products you like at the end of the night. It was great fun and it's certainly a craze that's sweeping the province (you can call Marcus on 07717 229880 to organise your own party).
I could do with some more pampering after my trip to Cairo on behalf of Ulster Tatler (you can read my travel feature on the city in an upcoming issue of everyone's favourite glossy magazine). Not that the trip was in anyway bad - far from it. Cairo is an amazing city, vibrant, busy and fascinating and I had a fantastic time. I don’t know why I didn’t visit years ago. But boy, was it hot. It was difficult to get a proper temperature reading during my all-too-brief stay, but there were rumours it reached around 45C degrees on some of the days I was there. That's hot!
It was amazing though, seeing the pyramids and the Sphinx, up close and personal. I even went inside one of the pyramids to see one of the burial chambers. Getting inside involved bending over from the waist and almost-crawling along a narrow passageway. Even though I was only one of many people making their way through the tunnel, I felt like an adventurous explorer entering the temple of doom, when I eventually made it into the chamber. Just call me Indiana McVeigh!
The next time I write I'll be in Sydney, on a long-awaited holiday to Australia, so I'll be able to share my news about this fascinating place. I also aim to take part in one of the organised climbs up the Sydney Harbour Bridge - even though I'm afraid of heights! Maybe that Indiana McVeigh nickname isn’t so inappropriate after all!