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Ray McAnally | |
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| Born | (1926-03-30)30 March 1926 Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland |
| Died | 15 June 1989(1989-06-15) (aged 63) County Wicklow, Ireland |
| Years active | 1957–1989 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, includingConor andAonghus |
| Awards | |
Ray McAnally (30 March 1926 – 15 June 1989) was an Irish actor. He was the recipient of threeBAFTA Awards in the late 1980s: twoBAFTA Film Awards forBest Supporting Actor (forThe Mission in 1986 andMy Left Foot in 1989), and aBAFTA Television Award forBest Actor forA Very British Coup in 1989. In 2020, he was ranked at number 34 onThe Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.[1]
Ray McAnally was born inBuncrana, a seaside town located on theInishowen peninsula ofCounty Donegal, Ireland and brought up in the nearby town ofMoville from the age of three. The son of a bank manager, he was educated atSt Eunan's College in Letterkenny where he wrote, produced and staged a musical calledMadame Screwball at the age of 16. He enteredMaynooth College at the age of 18 but left after a short time having decided that the priesthood was not his vocation. He joined theAbbey Theatre in 1947 where he met and married actressRonnie Masterson.
McAnally and Masterson later formed Old Quay Productions and presented an assortment of classic plays in the 1960s and 1970s. He made his West End theatre debut in 1962 withA Nice Bunch of Cheap Flowers and gave a well-received performance as George inWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, oppositeConstance Cummings, at thePiccadilly Theatre.
On television he was a familiar face, often in glossy thriller series likeThe Avengers,Man in a Suitcase andStrange Report. In 1968 he took the title role inSpindoe, a series charting the return to power of an English gangster, Alec Spindoe, after a five-year prison term. This was a spin-off from another series,The Fellows (1967) in which McAnally appeared as the Spindoe character in several episodes. He could render English accents very convincingly.
In 1976 McAnally appeared in theGranada Television daytime seriesCrown Court. He played the character of Robert Scard, aconfidence trickster found guilty offraud.
In 1988, a century after theWhitechapel Murders, he appeared in the television mini-seriesJack the Ripper. McAnally playedWilliam Gull, a Physician-in-Ordinary toQueen Victoria, who the program claimed was the killer.[2]
McAnally regularly acted in the Abbey Theatre and at Irish festivals, but in the last decade of life he achieved award-winning notice on TV and films. His performance as Cardinal Altamirano in the filmThe Mission (1986) earned himEvening Standard andBAFTA awards. He earned aBAFTA Award nomination for his role in the BBC'sA Perfect Spy and theScreenPlay dramaScout in 1988 for the 1987 BAFTA Awards.[3] Then in 1989 he won the 1988 BAFTA for Best Actor for his performance inA Very British Coup,[4] a role that also brought him aJacob's Award, and just three months before his sudden death. In the last year of his life, he portrayed the father ofChristy Brown in the award-winning filmMy Left Foot.
McAnally died suddenly of aheart attack on 15 June 1989, aged 63,[5] at his home, which he shared with Irish actress Britta Smith. He remained married to actressRonnie Masterson until his death, although they lived apart. He received a posthumousBAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his last filmMy Left Foot in 1990.[6]
At the time of his death he was due to play 'Bull' McCabe inJim Sheridan's filmThe Field. The part eventually went toRichard Harris, who received anOscar nomination for his performance. McAnally had also been cast in the lead role ofFirst and Last, a drama about a man who walked fromLand's End to John o' Groats. Almost a third of the filming had been completed when he died but the whole play had to be refilmed, withJoss Ackland taking the role instead.[citation needed]
McAnally had four children:Conor,Aonghus, Máire, and Niamh. Conor is a producer, based in Texas, and Aonghus is a television and radio presenter/producer in Ireland.
