Jared Harris talks to RTÉ Entertainment’s John Byrne about the "treasure trove" that is his father Richard’s vast archive, and about finding it a permanent home in University College Cork’s Boole Library.
They just don’t make them like Richard Harris any more. And that's a pity. He put more into his life and his art than most of us mere mortals can ever imagine. The world’s been a much duller place without him.
I know it sounds contradictory, but he was both a one-off and part of a cadre of actors - the likes of Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed - who tore through the second half of the 20th Century with a lust for life that almost matched their remarkable ability to perform.
What tales these guys could tell about their experiences were they still around. We can only wonder what their lives were really like, what they really felt about what mattered (or didn’t) to them. Well, at least one of them took the decision to keep the receipts.
Richard Harris, arguably Limerick’s most famous and greatest son, passed away 20 years ago, on October 25, 2002. He was only 72. But he crammed so much into those years.
The much-loved actor left behind a remarkable body of work that ranges from director Lindsay Anderson’s kitchen sink drama This Sporting Life to Lerner & Loewe musical Camelot, Jim Sheridan’s adaptation of John B Keane’s The Field to Clint Eastwood’s revisionist Western Unforgiven, right up to his final role as Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies.
I could also add his iconic version (the original) of Jimmy Webb’s elegiac song MacArthur Park, which was a major hit in 1968. And I just did.
Richard Harris also left behind a personal archive that reflected his life, both on and off-stage. And, until now, it remained off-limits to the public eye, and the scrutiny of experts.
Thanks to the Harris family and the assistance of his son Jared, the Richard Harris Archive is being donated to University College Cork, and will find a home in UCC’s Boole Library.
Jared, of course, is no slouch in the acting stakes, and his hefty CV includes the likes of AMC drama Mad Men, major cult sci-fi show Fringe, historical drama The Crown, and HBO miniseries Chernobyl. And that’s just his TV work!
But Jared isn’t here to talk about his impressive career - this is all about his remarkable father and fellow thespian, Richard Harris. And the exciting news that the Richard Harris Archive is winging its way to his native Munster. Almost like he intended.
John Byrne: What does it mean to you that the archives are going to University College Cork?
Jared Harris: What does it mean to me? I’m relieved! All this treasure was sitting in a lock-up in the countryside, and it couldn’t just sit there forever. It needed a home, it needed somewhere it was going to be looked after, where it was going to be appreciated for the value, the historical record that it is.
It took some time to try and find a home for it - and we’ve found the perfect place for it.
Can you describe what sort of contents are in there?
A treasure trove of photographs, letters, unpublished manuscripts, theatre pieces, plays, his scripts from several of the most famous roles and all his notes, letters he wrote to his home, to his family, personal letters, letters that he wrote to [movie mogul] Jack Warner and various people that he worked with. Old movie posters, old film canisters with home movie footage . . . there’s just a ton of stuff.
That sounds like quite a job, putting that all together and making sense of it all?
That’s not my job!
You can tell them ‘I’m busy’.
Yeah, I literally am because I’ll be working. I’m looking forward to seeing what they discover. There’s a lot of stuff there. Someone’s job is going to be trying to figure out how to decipher his handwriting, which is no easy feat.
He suffered from dyslexia, so he suffered from the habit of inappropriately capitalising letters in the middle of words.
I presume it’s a big deal for the Harris family that all this archive material is more or less ‘going home’ to Ireland, and Munster in particular?
It is. Like I said, it was in a lock-up. It was just slowly getting damp and deteriorating. It’s a relief, because I know it’s going to a place where it’s going to be preserved, and archived and catalogued. And valued and looked after.
And I’m sure that process will throw up things that we didn’t know and we weren’t aware of. I’ve gone through most of it, I’ve got a very good idea what’s there. But there’s tons of notebooks in there, full of various scribbles and writings, so I’m excited to see what they find. Like I said, I know about 80% of it.
You’ve probably made a few discoveries yourself, that have kind of enlightened you and your view of your father?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Just the day before yesterday I came across a letter that dad wrote to his mother and father. He was in rehearsals for Arthur Miller’s A View From a Bridge. Arthur Miller’s coming to rehearsal every day. And one of the days he brings his wife to rehearsal. His wife is Marilyn Monroe.
And in that letter he announces his intention to ask my mother to marry him.
That’s amazing!
So, yeah, you’re looking at a very personal collection.
You’re in a rather unique situation. Everyone in Ireland claims Richard Harris - but he was your da. What was it like having Richard Harris as a father?
I don’t know what it’s like not having Richard as a father! He was tremendously supportive and encouraging, and great fun and . . . loving. He was very loving person, a very loving father. He wasn’t present all the time, but you were in no doubt of the fact that he loved us. He loved his children.
The fact that yourself and two brothers [Damien and Jamie] went on to either act or direct is probably a testament of his role as both a father and a guiding figure . . .
Yeah, he was really supportive to us in our career choices. I hear what you’re saying about that, and I understand why people would think, of course this reflects an interest that our father had - but my mother was also an actress.
They met when she auditioned for him for a play that he was directing. They were both actors at the time. She never lost her love for the theatre, for cinema, for acting, for the profession. And we would talk about it just as much with her as we would talk about it with him.
So it really was a double-whammy from both of them.
And what about the whole Irish dimension. Do you feel a personal connection with Ireland?
My father was tremendously proud of Ireland. From when he goes to London in the 50s, he experiences some prejudices. But he constantly championed his Irishness, Ireland itself, the cause of Ireland, nationalism.
We understood that, we understood how important that was to him - and it rubbed off on us. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous to call myself Irish, because I wasn’t raised in Ireland, but me and my brothers, we have a tremendous love for, affection for, and respect for Ireland.
Is there going to be a grand opening or first exhibition of the archives?
The very first exhibition of it is going to be in Limerick at the Hunt Museum. And it was really important to us that the first people who would get to see it has to be [the people of] Limerick. Because we wanted to honour that connection. And we will be there.
And following the exhibition at the Hunt Museum, will it then be moved permanently to the Boole Library in University College Cork?
Yeah. The collection itself is huge, so it’ll be a curated part of the collection. There’s thousands and thousands of objects, photographs and manuscripts and stuff like that. So whatever Jill [Cousins, Director of The Hunt Museum] and Crónán [Ó Doibhlin, Head of Collections at UCC Library] decide, and whoever else is involved in that process decide, what that experience at the Hunt Museum is going to be.
She’s very focused on making it interactive and wants to try and engage the attention and interest of the younger generation. And I’m sure they’ll do a great job.
And then the collection itself is going to be archived and catalogued down in Cork, and it’ll be held there.
And obviously this is something your dad would’ve been very happy with, given that he collected all this stuff . . .
I’m sure he’d be thrilled. There were several different places where it could’ve gone. There were a couple of universities in the United States that have made a thing out of collecting actors’ memorabilia and archives and stuff like that, but to our minds it had to be Ireland. And it needed to be in Munster. So I think he’d be thrilled with it.
You can read the news story about the Richard Harris Archives and UCC here.
