Man Friday
Friday, 23 May 2008
Our Man Friday today is an entertainer in the true sense!
Although he qualified as a barrister, law is probably the only aspect of showbusiness that he has not yet tried! And has he been busy! From Wanderley Wagon to Halls Pictorial.From Theatre and stage to Hollywood Films ..Along the way several musical hits and an appearance on Top of the Pops... and he even managed to fit in a few years as a mad alcoholic priest on Craggy Island? It must be Frank Kelly...
PROFILE
Frank Kelly (1938) is an Irish actor whose career has spanned radio, TV, theatre, music, writing and films. He is also an accomplished fiddle player! He has toured extensively in the US and Canada. His big screen appearances include The Italian Job,(Michael Caine) Ryan's Daughter & Evelyn (Pierce Brosnan). On TV he did Wanderly Wagon and Halls Pictorial Weekly. He has done serious roles in every major theatre here and in the West End. And he has done panto and music. Yet, despite such an extensive career he is still best known for playing Farther Jack Hackett in the Fr Ted Series which only ran from 1995-1998.
Last year Frank had an operation to remove a tumour from his bowel. He has just finished his chemo and has been given the all clear. Frank is married to Baibre Neldon since 1964, they have seven children and 14 grandchildren, all of whom live close by.
GROWING UP AND HIS OWN FAMILY
Frank was brought up in a middle class Dublin household and it was here that he learned all about satire as as his father, Charles E Kelly, was a founding editor of Dublin Opinion, Ireland's most famous satirical political journal, which ran for 46 years.
Kelly's schooling at Dublin's Blackrock College was not a happy experience. Escaping the college he went on to Univiersity to study law and "I discovered the university drama society Dramsoc, and there I discovered the theatre and I fell into it totally and had a wonderful time."
Only when he'd passed his bar exams did Kelly discover the ignominy of being an out-of-work actor, so took a job as a sub-editor, then a features writer, on the Irish Press and Irish Independent. Eventually, though, he threw in the journalistic towel to brave stage and TV plays.
EARLY WORKING YEARS
From starting out in music hall at the Eblana, in Dublin, with Cecil Sheridan and later working for four years as Jack Cruise's "feed", alongside pantos, summer revues, and collaborations with Jimmy O'Dea, he has played "most every venue the length and breadth of the country", and it would be easier to name aspects of Irish showbiz life he hasn't been involved in, rather than the opposite.
He obviously inherited his fathers writing skills as Frank starred in popular RTE children's programme Wanderly Wagon with Eugene Lambert from 1968-1982, playing a number of different characters ( Doctor Astro, a recurring villain and Sneaky the Snake, Doctor Astro's sidekick), also writing many of the scripts.
It was his work on the infamous Hall's Pictorial Weekly though that really established Frank as one of Ireland's most recognisable faces, and led to him winning a Jacob's Award in 1974. (Halls Pictorial regularly savaged the turgid world of Irish politics.)
His Radio work included HPW, the long running Glen Abbey radio show, Newsbeat (an early RTE TV satire), the Only Slaggin' radio shows, Franks's first ever role in film was as an uncredited prisoner in the classic film The Italian Job in 1969, which starred Noel Coward. . He subsequently appeared in Taffin , Cowboys & Angels, Evelyn, Rats, and played Pierce Brosnan's father in Evelyln.
His TV appearances include Remmington Steele, Glenroe, The Irish RM, and more recently TG4's Running Mate, a political drama four-part series centres on the skullduggery and intrigue that stems from a bid by a desperate politician to win a Dail seat in South Kerry.
His theatrical performances (serious plays ) are too numerous to list but include the West End, Us and Canada down to Panto and Sleeping Beauty in the Gaiety.
FATHER TED
Fr Ted ran for three seasons on Channel 4 between April 1995 and May 1998. Set on the fictitious Craggy Island it was actually shot at various locations in County Clare such as Ennis, Kilfenora, Ennistymon, and Kilnaboy. The Parochial house is at Glenquin, near Kilnaboy. All interior scenes were shot in London.
It is currently being screed on BBC America. The show won a BAFTA in 1996. ( FYI Dermot Morgan died aged 45 in 1998).
For his role in Father Ted he is said to have worn contact lenses (to show Father Jack's blank eye), and he said that people wouldn't talk to him if he was in his Father Jack make-up.
On Father Jack
" I didn't base Jack on anyone I met, yet several young priests have come to me and said " How did you know about him? We have one upstairs in our place!".
I even got that in hospital. People would peep round the door or walk past and go, Are you&? recalls the veteran thespian of his convalescence after the operation which removed a massive tumour from his bowel. I would reply by saying, Im very tired and need to sleep& rest.. Which is better than, F*** off!
MUSIC
He's a mean fiddle player and a good singer.
He recorded six comedy albums along the way and even notched up an appearance on Top Of The Pops when his alter ego Gobnait Ó Lúnasa made the UK charts with Christmas Countdown and an album, Comedy Countdown, which featured a sketch taken from his radio show, The Glen Abbey Show. (The show which was on RTÉ during the 1970's came on at 2.30 pm each weekday)
HEALTH
On 6th February 2007 it was confirmed that Frank had been suffering from Bowel Cancer.
"I had discomfort and symptoms of various kinds. I felt something all right, but I just thought I was putting on weight and generally out of condition, having bowel problems. No one ever really thinks that's serious.
"I didnt panic and neither did my wife.That was a relief because if you've got someone else falling to pieces, its more difficult to cope.
Once the diagnosis was made, doctors moved swiftly.
"Within a week I had to have radical surgery. It was basically a case of have the surgery or die, but they never tell you how long you've got."
Frank spent ten days in a ward of four patients at Dublins St Vincents Hospital where he unwittingly became a celebrity as strangers greeted him with his Fr Ted catchphrase.
"That was rude because I was sick, he says now. To invade some-ones privacy when theyre really in pain in bed is just over the odds. Its very hurtful because theyre treating you as a commodity".
He found the chemo very trying:
"The one thing I had to do was steel myself against giving in to despair or depression.
"You can feel this very strong depression coming on and you have to fight it off, going, 'No, no, no'.
"Yet the chemo still made me cry unaccountably. I'd be driving along in the car and find tears just running down my face. But I was told all that was going to happen.
"Quite often you feel you can't bear it, and then you say, 'What kind of a wimp are you being? Shut up, Frank, go and take it'.
"You know it's medication that's going to make you better and you have to keep reminding yourself of that.
"That's why you don't cry, 'Oh I've had enough - I don't want any more. It's best you hang in there and be grateful for modern science. I have a really passionate commitment to positive thinking. I cannot bear negative thinking."
THE OUTLOOK
Having had his tumor removed in September 2007 he has now finished a course of chemotherapy in order to lower the risk of the disease returning. No secondary cancers were found during routine tests and he is now back to normal and ready to resume life.
WHAT HE'S DOING NOW
In the late summer he will appear in a play called Stragglers in London's West End. called Stragglers in Londons West End, which begins rehearsals in August, he reveals.
"Its about war veterans and is very funny and moving, and I think I will do that."
Also preparing to play Charles Dickens in an Irish film by Lawrie Foster.
" The cancer hasn't changed my view of the future at all".
"I'm still prepared to go on working till I drop. If it came on again, I would face that then. I'm cool about how long I live, although I wouldnt like it to be until everybody I've known from my generation is dead."