Barry Fitzgerald

William Joseph Shields, who performed as Barry Fitzgerald, was an Irish actor born on 10 March 1888 in Dublin and died on 4 January 1961. Over nearly four decades, he acted in films like *Bringing Up Baby* (1938), *The Long Voyage Home* (1940), *How Green Was My Valley* (1941), *The Sea Wolf* (1941), *Going My Way* (1944), *None but the Lonely Heart* (1944), and *The Quiet Man* (1952). For his role in *Going My Way*, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and also received a nomination for Best Actor for the same performance. In 2020, *The Irish Times* ranked him 11th on its list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Fitzgerald was raised in the Church of Ireland, though he often played stereotypical Irish Catholic characters. His father was Irish, his mother German, and he was the older brother of actor Arthur Shields. After attending Skerry's College in Dublin, he worked as a junior clerk at the Dublin Board of Trade from 1911 and later in an unemployment office, which he called "an easy job, full of leisure."

He began acting in amateur groups like the Kincora Players and joined the Abbey Theatre in 1915, taking the stage name Barry Fitzgerald to avoid trouble with his civil service superiors. His early roles were small, including bit parts and a four-word line in *The Critic*. His breakthrough came in 1919 with Lady Gregory's *The Dragon*, but he kept his day job until 1929. In 1924, he earned £2/10 a week at the Abbey and appeared in the premiere of Seán O'Casey's *Juno and the Paycock* as Captain Jack Boyle. He gained acclaim for *Paul Twyning* in 1925 and played Fluther Good in the controversial 1926 premiere of *The Plough and the Stars*, which sparked riots. That year, three gunmen tried to kidnap him from his mother's house to stop the play but failed. Other Abbey roles included *The Would-Be Gentleman*, *The Far Off Hills*, *Shadow of a Gunman*, and *The Playboy*. O'Casey wrote a part for him in *The Silver Tassie*, but the Abbey rejected it; the play was produced in London in 1929, prompting Fitzgerald to leave the civil service and become a full-time actor at age 41.

His film debut was in Alfred Hitchcock's *Juno and the Paycock* (1930), shot in London. In 1931, he toured England in *Paul Twyning* and performed it at the Abbey. From 1931 to 1936, he appeared in three plays by Teresa Deevy at the Abbey: *A Disciple*, *In Search of Valour*, and *Katie Roche*. He traveled to the United States with the Abbey Players in 1932 for *Things That Are Caesar's* and *The Far-off Hills*, and returned in 1934 for a repertory tour including *The Plough and the Stars*, *Drama at Inish*, *The Far-off Hills*, *Look at the Heffernans*, *The Playboy of the Western World*, *The Shadow of the Glen*, *Church Street*, *The Well of the Saints*, and *Juno and the Paycock*. He also appeared in the Irish silent film *Guests of the Nation* (1935), which was not seen outside Ireland until 2011.

In March 1936, Fitzgerald and three other Abbey members went to Hollywood for the film version of *The Plough and the Stars*, directed by John Ford. He stayed in Hollywood, working steadily as a character actor. His supporting roles included *Ebb Tide* (1937), *Bringing Up Baby* (1938), *Four Men and a Prayer* (1938), and *The Dawn Patrol* (1938). He made *Pacific Liner* (1939) with Victor McLaglen, and two John Farrow films: *The Saint Strikes Back* (1939) and *Full Confession* (1939). Between these, he returned to Broadway in 1939 for *The White Steed*. After *Full Confession*, he did Broadway's *Kindred* (1939–40) and a revival of *Juno and the Paycock* (1940) that ran 105 performances. Back in Hollywood, he reunited with Ford for *The Long Voyage Home* (1940), then appeared in *San Francisco Docks* (1940), *The Sea Wolf* (1941), *How Green Was My Valley* (1941), and *Tarzan's Secret Treasure* (1941). He and his brother Arthur starred in the short-lived Broadway play *Tanyard Street* (1941), directed by Arthur; *The New York Times* praised Fitzgerald as "the incarnation of the comic spirit." He then made *The Amazing Mrs. Holliday* (1943), *Two Tickets to London* (1943), and *Corvette K-225* (1943) for Universal.