Mini Biography
Jack MacGowran, the great Irish character actor known for his roles in the plays of Samuel Beckett, was born on October 13, 1918 in Ireland. He established his professional reputation as a member of the Abbey Players in Dublin, but he won his greatest fame for assaying Beckett's characters onstage.
MacGowran's appearance as the Squire's right-hand man in John Ford's paean to Irealnd, The Quiet Man (1952) introduced him to world cinema. He moved to London in 1954, where he joined The Royal Shakespeare Company, becoming a friend of fellow Irishman-abroad Peter O'Toole, with whom he would co-star in Richard Brooks's Lord Jim (1965) (1965) a decade later. He appeared as Joxer, one of the great roles in modern Irish drama, in the Broadway musical "Juno", which was based on Sean O'Casey's 1924 masterpiece "Juno and the Paycock". Fittingly, he played O'Casey's brother Archie in Young Cassidy (1965), one of John Ford's last films (which the director had to abandon due to ill health).
One of his only movie leads came with 1969's _Wonderwall (1969)_ , an exercise in "mod" that is remembered mostly for 'George Harrison' 's score. By that time, MacGowran had established himself as the actor to go to for roles calling for an impish, Puckish character. He was in great demand for comedies, such as the Oscar-winning 'Tom Jones (1963)_ (Best Picture of 1963) and Start the Revolution Without Me (1970). On the other hand, he memorably played The Fool to the 'Paul Scofield' 's watershed interpretation of King Lear (1971) in Peter Brook's 1971 film that captured Scofield's great performance, arguably the greatest interpretation of Lear in the 20th Century.
MacGowran starred in the first London production of Beckett's "Endgame", then began a busy career as a character actor in motion pictures. Roman Polanski used him twice, as a gangster in his absurdist Cul-de-sac (1966) and as Professor Abronsius, the Vampire Hunter, in his horror film parody _Fearless Vampire Killers, The (1967)_ , a role that was written especially for him. His last film was a more straightforward horror picture, the 1973 blockbuster The Exorcist (1973), in which he played a doomed film director. MacGowran died on January 31, 1973, of complications from influenza, which he had caught in London during a flu epidemic. The cinema and the stage lost a unique talent that never has been replaced.
Mini Biography By:
Jon C. Hopwood