The screen and stage veteran talks Tolka Row and Fair City with Harry Guerin.
What do you remember about your first day in RTÉ?
We're talking about 1963 and I was in a play in The Pike Theatre down Herbert Lane, just off Baggot Street. A producer from RTÉ, Christopher Fitz-Simon, was watching the play and he had the series Tolka Row in mind. So I got a letter to go out for an audition and my first day in RTÉ was arriving at reception, and I remember the casting director coming down the stairs and he says, 'Follow me up'. We went into a room and he asked me to read all the characters in Tolka Row! So then they sent a letter to the Pike Theatre saying I got the part of Sean Nolan and I ran home so fast that I forgot I still had me bicycle outside the Pike Theatre and I was halfway up the canal! First day on Fair City I remember too, because when I gave up Tolka Row, for the last year of the show whenever anybody asked me mother Rita [May Ollis] where Sean was she'd say, 'He's upstairs'. I was upstairs for a year! When I came into Fair City I came into the Doyle's shop and then where do I go? Upstairs! I thought, 'Ah, I'm not going to be up here for another eight years?!'
Who was the biggest inspiration in your early career?
Desmond Perry. He was the senior actor in Tolka Row and played Jack Nolan, Sean's father. A very fine actor, who was very professional, very punctual and very precise about what he was doing. I learned a lot from him. Mind you, I learned a lot of the fun of it from Laurie Morton, who played my sister Peggy. The first day of rehearsals I asked her was she playing my mother! She says, 'The cheek of you, you young fella. I'm playing your sister!'
What has been your proudest/most memorable moment?
I think the first scene I ever played. When you see yourself on television for the first time you sort of get a little glow. My first line was with Eileen Murphy, who played Assumpta Feeney – the girl next door who Sean Nolan regarded as a pest. He's sitting in the house reading and she's kneeling up on the sofa beside him. 'Sean, what are ya reading?' And he just says, 'A book'. The minute it went out on air it changed my life.
We've had great moments on Fair City, with Sarah Flood, who plays my daughter Suzanne. I remember when she was getting married and it's just Bela and Suzanne in the house and she's in her veil. She looks at me and says, 'Yes?' And the tears are in my eyes and I say, 'Yes'. That was a lovely moment because I'd seen her growing up in the programme. There are tears welling up in me now. She has a special place in my life.
...and the most embarrassing?
I may be overly proud of being a thorough professional. We were shooting a scene in Fair City and my mobile phone went off. For me, that's a mortal sin! It was terrible!
Which TV shows are you taking to your desert island?
I can't bring episodes of Tolka Row because they wiped all the tapes! There's no evidence in RTÉ on videotape that I was ever in a soap called Tolka Row. There are only photographs. There are, I think, two episodes left on tape but I'm not in them – I was upstairs! I'd bring the Discovery Channel and some of the early dramas RTÉ did in black and white, like Insurrection, a great series about the Rising.
