Cyril Cusack remembered: 'He never stopped being a character'

Tue, 20 Dec, 2022 - 21:00

Richard Fitzpatrick

When Cyril Cusack died in 1993, aged 82, the opening line of his obituary in the New York Times mentioned he was “widely regarded as Ireland’s finest actor”. It is difficult to dispute the claim. He was a colossus on stage and screen. His film credits include classics such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Day of the Jackal.

It was perhaps his feats in theatre which set him apart, though, including his command of the Shakespeare canon and his memorable performances on stage at the Abbey Theatre, surely his spiritual home. In a landmark production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters play, adapted by Frank McGuinness in 1990, he starred alongside his daughters, Sinéad, Sorcha and Niamh.

“The thing I remember most is the feeling that I didn't have to act because when Cyril looked at you on stage he saw you as the character and he was so totally fused with his own character that it was almost like he wasn't acting, it was so seamless,” says Niamh Cusack.

“It wasn't always easy. Sometimes in rehearsal he’d forget [the setting] and he'd call us by our names, but I remember standing at the back of the theatre, watching him do the drunk scene when we were in ‘tech’ and I just thought how brilliant he was. Being up close and personal with his acting in that way was a real lesson.”

Cusack was born in Durban, South Africa in 1910. His father, who was from Birmingham but Irish descent, was a mounted policeman in Natal. His parents separated after a few years of marriage. Cusack eventually settled with his mother in Ireland where he got an education in acting, as both his mother and stepfather, Brefni O’Rorke, were actors with a fit-up theatre company which toured around Ireland. (Later, his stepfather had a notable career in film.) In 1918, Cusack appeared in his first film, the silent movie Knocknagow. A measure of his career’s longevity is that he featured in Ron Howard’s Far and Away in 1992, his second-last film credit.

“I think it was inevitable that he fell in love with acting,” says Niamh Cusack. “His mother initially was a chorus girl. He left South Africa with her when he was he was only four. She started a relationship with Breffni O'Rorke, who was a really respected Irish actor at the time. That was Cyril’s life, the world he grew up in. He was around actors all the time. It is a kind of family – the acting profession. That was the oxygen he breathed from a very early age.

“He went to university and he did I think a year studying law, but it isn't surprising to me that he didn't stick with that because he'd already got used to a peripatetic life, moving around, playing to different audiences, being in different environments. Naturally, he was always moving. He was someone who didn't really have roots. His roots were in the theatre. That's where he felt at home.”

Until the age of 15, Cusack half-joked that he attended every school in Ireland. Every few weeks, he’d knock on a different classroom door and say: “I’m with the actors. Can I come to school?” The nomadic lifestyle meant his only real childhood friendships were with actors.

“I don't think he was someone who was able to keep friendships up because he was moving around all the time,” says Niamh Cusack. “He talked a lot about the fit-up companies and going from school to school and he did feel like he didn't have a proper home except in theatres. He probably always felt a bit of an outsider.”

Brian Reddin of Dearg Films has directed a riveting documentary on his life, to be screened on TG4, which is fitting as Cusack was an Irish language enthusiast and featured in Bob Quinn’s seminal Irish language film, Poitín, in 1978. All six of Cusack’s children were rounded up to help tell the story of Cusack’s life, as well as Jim Sheridan, Stephen Rea and Cusack’s son-in-law Jeremy Irons, who provides fascinating insight into the man and the father.

The film also draws on a rich archive of material, including a glowing interview with Richard Burton, who starred alongside Cusack in several films. “I think Brian, the director, has done a really good job,” says Niamh Cusack. “There is stuff that I didn’t know about Cyril, including performances in films as a young man that I’d never seen.”

Cyril Cusack and daughter Sinead Cusack.

One of the documentary’s interesting sections examines a rare false step by Cusack in his career. In 1942, he was starring on stage in a lead role alongside Scarlett O’Hara in George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma in London’s West End. It was only a few years after she had starred in Gone With the Wind. The play was in the middle of a successful run. Apparently on St Patrick’s Day, Cusack was out celebrating. When he went on stage that night, according to one account, he recited speeches from Playboy of the Western World.

The following morning he was fired. John Gielgud took his place. It put a halt to his theatre career in England. He was practically blacklisted until Peter Brooke brought him back for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Physicists more than 20 years later. Irons suggests the incident cost him his place alongside Laurence OIivier, Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Scofield as “one of the five greats”.

“It was a big thing to be acting opposite Vivien Leigh in the West End,” says Niamh Cusack. “He never wanted to talk about it. I never managed to get his take on it. I’m sure he had regrets about it.”

Cyril Cusack at Cobh, Co Cork, in 1952 with his wife Maureen, and children Paul, Sorcha and Sinead. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Cusack formed his own touring theatre company in 1945. His film career blossomed following his eye-catching turn as a Belfast getaway driver in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out, which was released in 1947. In the autumn of his career, he collected a new generation of Irish fans for his role as Uncle Peter in Glenroe. His son Pádraig suggests in the documentary that he wasn’t chuffed about being better known for his role in a rural Irish soap opera than his film work.

He won fame in films and television for his character roles. Few could nail a character like him. He also had a habit of upstaging his co-stars. He used to tell a story against himself about a TV film he did starring Rex Harrison in 1982 called The Kingfisher. He was in the background of a shot which was about Rex Harrison’s character. Harrison ground to a halt in disgust, and asked: “What is Cusack doing behind me?”

Niamh Cusack laughs at the memory, adding: “He never stopped being a character whether the focus was on him or not. He was someone who was constantly alive on the stage. They say: ‘Never act with children or animals because they're so alive.’ Cyril was one of those actors who was always alive, a bit like a child. It never stopped – the life that he created for himself on the stage. Maybe sometimes that did pull focus alright.”