Occupation Actor Spouse May White (m. 1955–2007) Role Actor | Name T. McKenna Years active 1953–2009 | |
 | ||
Full Name Thomas Patrick McKenna Children Breffini McKenna, Kilian McKenna Movies Straw Dogs, Red Scorpion, Ulysses, The Scarlet and the Black, Valmont Similar People Joseph Strick, Joseph Zito, John Walsh, Sam Peckinpah, Breffini McKenna | ||
Thomas Patrick McKenna (7 September 1929 – 13 February 2011) was an Irish actor, born in Mullagh, County Cavan.
Contents
Early Years
Thomas Patrick McKenna was born at Mullagh, Co.Cavan, Ireland, in 1929 and educated at Mullagh School and St.Patrick's College, Cavan. There he became a protegee of Fr. Vincent Kennedy who featured him in the annual productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operas. He was a noted boy soprano and sang in Cavan Cathedral, but later would also become a keen member of the school's Gaelic Football squad representing St Patrick's in the final of the All Ireland colleges competition in 1948.
After leaving school he joined the Ulster Bank in Grannard, Co.Longford, and worked in banking for the next five years. However, he remained set on becoming an actor and when he received a posting to Dublin he soon made a mark on the city's amateur scene appearing with the Rathmines & Rathgar Operatic Society and the Dublin Shakespeare Society. His employers were not impressed by his extra curricular activities and in 1953 he was posted to the remote town of Killeshandra in County Cavan. McKenna refused to go and resigned his position.
Stage
McKenna made his stage debut at the tiny Pike Theatre in Dublin in 1953 as John Buchanan in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke. He played a season at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, with Anew McMaster's Shakespearean company and was a member of The Gas Theatre Company directed by Godfrey Quigley.
Through family contacts he sought an interview with the managing director of the Abbey Theatre, Ernest Blythe. Despite Blythe's concerns that 'his nose was too long and he would grow fat'. he eventually become a permanent member of the company in 1954 and would remain there for the next eight years performing over seventy roles.
In 1963 he secured a short leave of absence to go to London (St.Martin's Theatre) with the Gate Theatre's production of Stephen D, an adaptation of Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man by Hugh Leonard which had been a hit of that season's Dublin Theatre Festival.
McKenna stayed on when the London run ended, never returning to the Abbey company, and soon found work as the Irishman O'Keefe in J.P.Donleavy's The Ginger Man (Ashcroft, Croydon). Then he went to the Royal Court Theatre in Lindsay Anderson's revival of Julius Caesar (1964); the next year he took over as the Burglar in Shaw's Too Good to be True (Garrick).
He had not left the Irish stage behind entirely however and would make regular appearances at the Dublin Theatre Festival in A Little Winter Love, Pull Down A Horseman, King of the Castle and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
He joined Stuart Burge's company at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1968 playing Trigorin in The Seagull and Sir Joseph Surface in Sheridan's School For Scandal, both directed by Jonathan Miller. In 1969 he created the role of Fitzpatrick in David Storey's 'The Contractor' directed by Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre, London. The production later transferred to the Fortune Theatre and ran for over a year. In 1973 he took on the role of Andrew Wyke opposite his friend Donally Donnelly in the Irish premiere of Peter Shaffer's 'Sleuth'. The production played to acclaim at the Opera House, Cork, and at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin where it broke box office records.
Later that year he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and took over the role of Robert Hand in James Joyce's only play, 'Exiles' directed by Harold Pinter. In the same season he also appeared in a rare staging of Jean Genet's 'The Balcony' directed by Terry Hands.
He returned to the RSC in 1976 for Shaw's 'The Devil's Disciple', directed by Jack Gold in a production to mark the American bicentennial celebrations, as the revolutionary pastor Revd. Anderson.
In the late 1980s and 1990s he returned to the Dublin stage when he was invited by director Michael Colgan to join the Gate Theatre on a number of occasions including admired productions of Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard and No Mans Land. It was there he created the role of Dr. Rice in Brian Friel's drama, Molly Sweeney, and again at London's Almeida Theatre. Other Friel productions he appeared in were The Communication Cord (Hampstead Theatre, 1984) and Aristocrats (2004) at the RNT in his final stage appearance.
McKenna directed on occasion, and had productions of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (Nottingham Playhouse, 1968), Thomas Kilroy's The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche (Abbey Theatre, 1973) and Seán O'Casey's The Shadow of A Gunman (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 1980) to his name.
Film and television
During the 1960s and 1970s, McKenna appeared regularly in popular television dramas, including The Avengers (1964, 1965, 1968), Danger Man (1965), The Saint (1966, 1968), Adam Adamant Lives! (1967), Jason King (1972), The Sweeney (1975), Blake's 7 (1978), Minder (1984) and in the Doctor Who serial The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1989).
He played Richmond in the Thames Television series Callan (1972) and made ten appearances in Crown Court (1974–1982), mainly as barrister Patrick Canty, while also appearing in the popular ATV anthology drama series Love Story (1965-1968). He also featured prominently in other television dramas including The Duchess of Malfi (1972), The Changeling (1974), Holocaust (1978), The Manions of America (1981), To the Lighthouse (1983), The Scarlet and the Black (1983), Bleak House (1985), Strong Medicine (1986), Jack the Ripper (1988), Shoot to Kill (1990) and the final episode of Inspector Morse (2000).
He had prominent film roles in Ulysses (1967), and A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man (1977). Other film credits include The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Perfect Friday (1970), Villain (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), All Creatures Great and Small (1975), Memed, My Hawk (1988), Pascali's Island (1988),A Caribbean Mystery(1989) Monarch (2000) and The Libertine (2004).
He narrated the Emmy-winning documentary on the life of James Joyce Is There One Who Understands Me (RTÉ).
His performance as Henry VIII in the film Monarch, with Jean Marsh, written and directed by John Walsh was re-released in cinemas in 2014.
Radio
McKenna's voice featured in over thirty original drama productions for the BBC and the World Service along with readings of short stories and poetry for a variety of programmes. He took the role of Phonsie Doherty in Christopher FitzSimon's Radio 4 comedy series, Ballylenon, and later appeared opposite David Threlfall in the radio drama Baldi. On CD he has recorded the poetry of W.B Yeats, Joyce's short story collection Dubliners and Somerville & Ross's Tales of an Irish R.M.
Personal life
McKenna was married to May White from 1955 to her death in 2007. They had five children.
Death
McKenna died on 13 February 2011 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, at the age of 81 following a long period of illness. He was buried alongside his wife at Teampall Cheallaigh Cemetery in his native County Cavan.
Following his death, tributes were paid by President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Prince Charles, and Ireland's Culture Minister Mary Hanafin, with the latter stating that McKenna was "one of a great generation whose talents on the screen and stage both at home and abroad gave us all great pride in his accomplishments". In County Cavan, he is commemorated by the T. P. McKenna Drama Scholarships (VEC) and the T. P. McKenna Perpetual Trophy presented as part of the Millrace Annual Drama Festival.