Sir, – I'm mostly very bemused rather than angry to see my father, TP McKenna, absent from your list of 50 greatest Irish film actors (Ticket, June 13th).
He sparkled as Buck Mulligan in Ulysses and Stephen Dedalus in Portrait of the Artist both directed by Joseph Strick and then came home to make the small but valuable films of Kieran Hickey (A Child’s Voice & Exposure). He that was directed in films by Milos Forman, Tony Richardson, Charles Crichton, Peter Hall, Sam Peckinpah, Sidney Poitier, Peter Kosminsky and not forgetting the legendary John Ford.
He played opposite Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Helen Mirren, Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman, Diana Rigg, David Hemmings, Ursula Andress, Ewan McGregor, David Warner, Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Baker, John Gielgud, Anthony Quayle, Christopher Plummer and Richard Burton (twice).
Alright, so we won’t worry too much about Dolph Lundgren and the straight-to-video classic Red Scorpion, but his obituary nonetheless made the London Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Straits Times, Le Monde and even Pravda (prove me wrong!).
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Still, at least he gets to keep some excellent company out in the cold with the likes of Milo O’Shea, Siobhan McKenna, Kieron Moore, Dan O’Herlihy, Jack MacGowran, Godfrey Quigley, Pat McGoohan and a very poorly placed Ray MacAnally.
Even a list of the greatest swiss cheeses would have fewer holes in it. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN MCKENNA,
London.