Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard
c.2004
Born	John Keyes Byrne 9 November 1926 Dublin, Ireland
Died	12 February 2009 (aged 82) Dalkey, Ireland
Occupation	writer
Nationality	Ireland
Citizenship	Ireland
Notable works	Da, A Life
Notable awards	Jacob's Award, Tony Award, Drama Desk Award
Spouse	Paule Byrne (d. 2000) Katharine Hayes
Children	Danielle Byrne

Hugh Leonard (9 November 1926 – 12 February 2009) was an Irish dramatist, television writer and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote nearly 30 full-length plays, 10 one-act plays, three volumes of essays, two autobiographies, three novels and numerous screenplays and teleplays, as well as writing a regular newspaper column.

Life and career

Leonard was born in Dublin as John Joseph Byrne, but was put up for adoption. Raised in Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin, by Nicholas and Margaret Keyes, he changed his name to John Keyes Byrne. For the rest of his life, despite the pen name of "Hugh Leonard" which he later adopted and became well known by, he invited close friends to call him "Jack".

Leonard was educated at the Harold Boys' National School, Dalkey, and Presentation College, Glasthule, winning a scholarship to the latter. He worked as a civil servant, for 14 years. During that time he both acted in and wrote plays for community theatre groups. His first play to be professionally produced was The Big Birthday, which was mounted by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1956. After that his plays were produced regularly by Dublin's theatres.

He moved to Manchester for a while, working for Granada Television before returning to Ireland in 1970. There he settled in Dalkey.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Leonard adapted a number of classic novels for British television. In 1969, he won a Jacob's Award for his TV scripts for Nicholas Nickleby and Wuthering Heights. He wrote the script for the RTÉ adaptation of Strumpet City by James Plunkett.

Three of Leonard's plays have been presented on Broadway: The Au Pair Man (1973), which starred Charles Durning and Julie Harris; Da (1978); and A Life (1980). Of these, Da, which originated off-off-Broadway at the Hudson Guild Theatre before transferring to the Morosco Theatre, was the most successful, running for 20 months and 697 performances, then touring the United States for ten months. It earned Leonard both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for Best Play. It was made into a film in 1988, starring Martin Sheen and Barnard Hughes, who reprised his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance.

In 1984 Leonard discovered his accountant Russell Murphy had embezzled IR₤258,000 from him. Leonard was particularly upset that Murphy had used his money to take clients to the theatre and purchased expensive seats at some of Leonard's plays.

Leonard wrote two volumes of autobiography, Home Before Night (1979) and Out After Dark (1989). Some of his essays and journalism were collected in Leonard's Last Book (1978) and A Peculiar People and Other Foibles (1979). In 1992 the Selected Plays of Hugh Leonard was published. Until 2006 he wrote a humorous weekly column, "The Curmudgeon", for the Irish Sunday Independent newspaper. He had a passion for cats and restaurants, and an abhorrence of broadcaster Gay Byrne.

Even after retiring as a Sunday Independent columnist, Leonard displayed an acerbic humour. In an interview with Brendan O'Connor, he was asked if it galled him that Gay Byrne was now writing his old column. His reply was, "It would gall me more if he was any good at it." Leonard was a patron of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

In 1994, Leonard appeared in a televised interview with Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, an Irish political party associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Leonard had long been an opponent of political violence and a critic of the IRA. However on the show and afterwards he was criticized for being "sanctimonious and theatrical" towards Adams; at one point he referred to Sinn Féin as "dogs".

Hugh Leonard- Odd Man In, a film on his life and work was shown on RTÉ in March 2009. Leonard's final play, Magicality, was not performed during his life time; a rehearsed reading of the second act was staged at the Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre in June 2012.

Leonard died in his hometown, Dalkey, aged 82, after a long illness, leaving €1.5 million in his will.

Works

Plays

• The Italian Road (1954)
• The Big Birthday (1956)
• A Leap in the Dark (1957)
• Madigan's Lock (1958)
• A Walk on the Water (1960)
• The Passion of Peter Ginty (1961)
• Stephen D (1962)
• Dublin One (1963)
• The Poker Session (1964)
• The Family Way (1964)
• The Saints Go Cycling In (1965)
• Mick and Mick (1966)
• The Quick and the Dead (two one-act plays) (1967)
  • "The Late Arrival of the Incoming Aircraft"
  • "The Dead"
• The Au Pair Man" (1968)
• The Barracks (1969)
• The Patrick Pearse Motel (1971)
• Da (1973)
• Summer (1974)
• Suburb of Babylon (three one-act plays) (1983)             
  • "A Time of Wolves and Tigers"
  • "Nothing Personal"
  • "The Last of the Last of the Mohicans"
• Time Was (1976)
• Some of My Best Friends Are Husbands (1976)
• Liam Liar (1976)
• A Life (1979)
• Kill (1982)
• The Mask of Moriarty (1985)
• Pizazz: (three one-act plays) (1986)
  • "A View from the Obelisk"
  • "Roman Fever"
  • "Pizazz"
• Moving (1992)
• Chamber Music (two one-act plays) (1994)
  • Senna for Sonny
  • The Lily Lally Show
• Great Expectations (1995)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1996)
• Love in the Title (1999)
• Magicality

Novel

• Parnell and the Englishwoman (1992)
• A Wild People (2001)
• Fillums (2004)

Essays

• Rover and Other Cats (1972)
• Leonard's Last Book (1978)
• A Peculiar People and Other Foibles (1979)
• Dear Paule (2000)

Autobiography

• Home Before Night (1979)
• Out After Dark (1989)

The Broadway production of
Da (1978) starred Brian Murray and Barnard Hughes

Screenplays and teleplays

• Armchair Theatre
  • "The Irish Boys" (1962)
  • "A Kind of Kingdom" (1963)
  • "I Loved You Last Summer" (1965)
  • "The Big Blonde" (1966)
  • "Love Life" (1967)
  • "The Virgins" (1974)
• Thirty-Minute Theatre
  • "The Late Arrival of the Incoming Aircraft" (1965)       
  • "A Time of Wolves and Tigers" (1967)
• The Wednesday Play
  • "Silent Song" (1966)
  • "The Retreat" (1966)
• Half Hour Story
  • "Do You Play Requests?" (1968)
  • "A View from the Obelisk" (1968)
• Comedy Playhouse
  • "Me Mammy" (1968)
• Love Story
  • "The Egg on the Face of the Tiger" (1968)
• Play of the Month
  • "Stephen D" (adaptation) (1972)
• Strumpet City (1980)
• Good Behaviour (1983)
• Da (1988)
• Parnell & the Englishwoman (1991) TV mini-series
• Widows' Peak (1994)

Episodic television

• Saki: 8 episodes (adaptations) (1962)
• ITV Play of the Week: "Come Back, Little Sheba" (adaptation) (1965)
• The Hidden Truth: 1 episode (1964)
• Thirteen Against Fate: 1 episode (1966)
• Public Eye: 2 episodes (1966)
• The Informer: 2 episodes (1966)
• Out of the Unknown: 2 episodes (1966)
• Great Expectations: 10 episodes (adaptations) (1967)
• Liebesgeschichten: 1 episode (1967)
• Nicholas Nickleby: 13 episodes (adaptations) (1968)
• Late Night Horror: 1 episode (1968)
• Sherlock Holmes: 3 episodes (1968)
• The Jazz Age: 1 episode (adaptation) (1968)
• Detective: 2 episodes (1968–1969)
• Dombey and Son: 13 episodes (adaptations) (1969)
• W. Somerset Maugham: 2 episodes (adaptations) (1969–1970)
• Sentimental Education: 3 episodes (adaptations) (1970)
• Six Dates with Barker: 1 episode (1971)
• The Moonstone: 5 episodes (1972)
• Country Matters: 4 episodes (adaptations) (1972–1973)
• Seven of One: 1 episode (1973)
• Black and Blue: 1 episode (1973)
• Father Brown: 6 episodes (adaptations) (1974)
• Nicholas Nickleby: 6 episodes (1977)
• London Belongs to Me: 7 episodes (1977)
• Wuthering Heights: 2 episodes (1978)
• The Little World of Don Camillo: 12 episodes (1981)
• Storyboard: 1 episode (1989)
• Alleyn Mysteries: 1 episode (1993)

External links

• Hugh Leonard at Irish Writers Online
• Hugh Leonard at Irish Playography
• Hugh Leonard at the Internet Broadway Database
• Hugh Leonard at IMDb